Poets ready to put on thought-provoking night at city venue

BAFTA Award-winning writer and producer turned poet Henry Normal will team up with internet sensation, poet and author Brian Bilston for a show at The Wulfrun at The Halls in Wolverhampton on Friday night.

The show, which is the final show of the 2024 Wolverhampton Literature Festival, will see the pair of wordsmiths take it in turns to give the audience a night of affirming poetry, marvellous escapism and lots of laughter.

The pair have come to Wolverhampton as part of a 24-date theatre tour, which has left them wondering where they are at times, with Henry joking that he knows what day of the week it is and where he is by looking at his socks.

They said that anyone who hasn't seen them before can expect to have a fun evening with words, saying that their audiences also seemed to be very experience-rich.

Brian said: "They can expect some poetry, interspersed with some jokes and some stories and a bit of everything, although we're definitely not doing any magic tricks, although we should think about that one of these days!"

Henry said: "I'll do the first half, then Brian will do the second half and we try to change it up each time, mostly to keep ourselves interested, but it's basically about having a bit of fun with words in all their forms and audience really seem to like it.

"We have what you might call an experience-rich audience, which means not many teenagers and people who have a bit of life to draw upon, a bit of snow on roof and may, from the back, look like cotton buds!"

The pair have taken different routes to their current positions as poets, with Brian saying he started out sharing poems on social media while he was working in an office and gaining a regular salary, but then, in what he described as a mid-life crisis, he decided to give it a go and published his first book.

Brian Bilston is often described as the “Banksy of poetry”, making the artform accessible to all and maintaining a mysterious anonymity. and he has cultivated a large and loyal following on social media and has become truly beloved by his 500,000 or so fans.

Henry said he had been a poet since he had been 14, but had worked on TV for 30 years before deciding to go back to poetry.

He has toured with his ever-evolving poetry show constantly since retiring from TV and Film production and has 15 poetry books in print including the latest collection “A Moonless Night’ out on Valentine’s day last month.

They both said that the artform of poetry fit them very well and allowed them to perform in their own styles for whatever type of audience was present.

Brian said: "All poets have their own different styles and I think both of us are very laid back and we need our books on the stage in front of us as we're not the sorts who stroll up and down the stage being quite histrionic.

"Neither of us are also the types who mumble into the pages of our books, so I guess it's just us and the microphone, talking into it and talking to the audience and hopefully getting some participation with them."

Henry said: "The lovely thing about the communication through poetry is that it's very reasoned, thought through and personal in that it's from you directly to the person you're listening to.

"When I was working in television, I worked on Philomena and there were about 400 people, so everything was being pulled every different way, so what you got in the end was an amalgam of lots of people's ideas, whereas the great thing with poetry is it's your ideas delivered by you."

Brian and Henry said they both admired a lot of the same poets, including people like Roger McGough and John Cooper Clark, who Brian said could get up and deliver poems with great poignancy, but also deliver poems of great humour.

Henry said he remembered seeing Spike Milligan in action when he was 16 and found himself profoundly moved by how a man who was so funny could also say things that were so moving.

They said that helped influence their own word and said that the show they put on would take people on a journey full of human emotion.

Brian said: "It's a balancing act when you're putting together a set of poems and we think about that a lot, so I might start with something that will get people laughing and then maybe a couple of poems that will be something quieter and reflective, then bring the audience back up.

"It's something I've done a lot more of and I've realised that there's an art to putting together an evening of poetry."

Henry said: "The people of Wolverhampton are the same as people across the country in that we all have the same concerns and life journeys and we're tapping into those things that we have in common."

Brian, who is originally from Birmingham, had played the literature festival as a solo performer in Bilston in 2023, but said it was very special to be there with Henry for 2024.

Both also said that they were enjoying playing to bigger audiences and seeing how their show translated in a larger setting.

Brian said: "One of the most amazing things about this tour that we're doing together is that we're playing in front of audiences the size of which we haven't really done before, like being in Oxford and playing to more than 600 people in the town hall.

"When we started, we were saying that if we could get 200 people in for a poetry show, then we were doing well and those were audiences we were used to, so we've been wondering whether it's going to translate to those bigger venues."

Henry said: "We've played to about 750 people at Becks Hill and London has been around 900 people, so it's interesting as you think of poetry as an intimate thing, not as a theatre show or rock concert.

"That means there's a lot of energy there with that many people, so it's quite nice to have 500 people come to a Friday night show to listen to poetry."

Henry Normal and Brian Bilston will be at The Wulfrun at The Halls on Friday at 7.30pm.

Tickets are still available and can be bought at wolvesliteraturefestival.co.uk/events/edge-street-live-crosstown-concerts-present-brian-bilston-henry-normal.html