IT’S one of those eternal questions which comes up again and again: who would win in a fight to the death?

While the subjects of the question is usually along the lines of Alien versus Predator or a lion against a crocodile, Peterborough’s former poet laureates Mark Grist and MC Mixy are taking the fight out to the literary world, to discover the bad-ass of verse.

“Being a bad-ass was the key thing,” says Grist of choosing their competitors. “Who had the most interesting lives. We didn’t want to pick obvious people like Shakespeare, we thought it would be more interesting to have someone like Peterborough’s local poet John Clare who people don’t know so much about.”

Having met on the Peterborough poetry scene Grist and Mixy first toured together in a show where each learned about the other’s passions – poetry and hip-hop. What attracted them to this show was its variety.

“We wanted to come up with something where we didn’t know what would happen,” says Grist. “The audience choose the dead poet, we tell the audience about them with comedy poetry to explain why they deserve to be on the board in the first place, then we dress up as two of them and have a rap battle in character.”

The poets range in age, nationality and gender, from Mixy’s favourite Gil Scott Heron to Grist’s hero Lord Byron. Also on the board are Robert Burns, Christina Rossetti, and the battle to end all battles between Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Whichever poet wins each round gets one of their poems read out loud.

“We have four poets per team, but only three from each side get used each night,” says Grist. “They are all poets we are passionate about. We want to beat each other because there is a forfeit for the loser – we are really on edge through the whole show!”

At present the score is two-all, so there is still all to play for.

The pair spent three weeks researching the poets, visiting their graves, speaking to tour guides and reading up about their lives. Some fell by the wayside during the research process, including war poet Siegfried Sassoon and Welsh hellraiser Dylan Thomas.

“Audiences don’t need to worry if they don’t know all about the poets,” says Grist. “It’s all non-judgemental and fun – all about what we think of these guys.”

This is set to be the duo’s last tour for a while, as Mixy is heading off to China to teach.

But Mixy’s influence has rubbed off on Grist, as he plans his next solo project.

“It’s gone full circle,” he says. “I’m going to pursue more hip-hop stuff – I’ve always been interested. It is incredibly difficult to write things that fit in with the music. I’m going to explore more of that next year.”

Starts 8pm, tickets £12.50/£11. Call 0845 2938480.