The Petty Concerns of Luke Wright, Komedia, Brighton, Mar 7 (From The Argus)

The Petty Concerns of Luke Wright, Komedia, Brighton, Mar 7

11:33am Friday 12th March 2010 in

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Performance poet Luke Wright laid bare his soul during this outing at Komedia. And with only 20 people in the room – I wasn’t counting, but he was – it was a raw, sometimes brutally honest, affair.

Luke explained how his quest for fame, for popularity, to be the centre of attention even among his mates, had driven him to Googling his own name, silencing critical bloggers and wearing tight jeans.

We laughed, somewhat hypocritically, as he read out the self-important lyrics of his 16-year-old self and brought us to the bitter end of his web searches. But his poetry – in particular Mondeo Man, in which he comes to terms with a life of normality, 2.4 children and proper fitting trousers – will have rung true with anyone still clinging on to their teenage dreams of stardom and success but who is old enough to know better.

Even in an age of internet-generated self-publicity, we can’t all be stars – especially if our field of expertise is the little-known one of performance poetry. His acceptance of that fact gave Luke’s latest show an edge over his others. But does this means his touring days are over or will we look back on this as his ironic breakthrough performance?