On the grounds of pretentious self-importance, is there any other artform easier to mock than poetry? Kevin Eldon (Jam, Knowing Me Knowing You) delves deep in the epic, three-hour long documentary Poetry Puh-lease (Radio 4 Extra) that manages to both celebrate and skewer the relationship between comedy and verse.
Eldon intersperses the work of poets such as John Cooper Clarke with fictional comedy characters dreamed up by the likes of comedian Simon Day, wryly suggesting that the gap between the two isn’t that wide at all.
The straight poetry stuff is subversive enough – including, for example, a moving segment on the whipsmart Northern cult poet Hovis Presley. Eldon digs through the BBC’s comedy archive to find clips of characters keen to show up the elitism of the poetry world: there’s Sir Ralph Stanza (the condescending Londoner in Salford), Tim Keys and Simon Day’s Geoffrey Allerton awkwardly attempting to position the obsessions of the high street into romantic verse. Allerton’s poem England (“Paul vows to leave Greggs and get a job at a proper bakery/Somewhere custard is too hot/Somewhere custard is too cold … England, England”) is a brilliant example of the so-bad-it-could-be-real. Best of all, though, are Eldon’s own grotesque, acutely observed creations that shine in the show’s hall of mirrors. There’s the deeply serious Paul Hamilton whose show-within-a-show, Poet’s Tree, features an analysis of Black Lace’s Agadoo; a reading from a beat poet type (a Howl parody entitled Dwayne O’Reilly’s Ass); and an interview with the tragic, unpublished poet Justin Wiverly, who wrote about “epileptics in the park and a biting mother”. He goes from hysterical tears to inappropriately groping Hamilton in the space of a few minutes. A must listen.
Elsewhere, Fact Magazine continues its series of mixes, this time (on number 478) curated by Panda Bear. Here the Animal Collective member reveals the sounds that influenced his excellent new album, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, featuring King Tubby and Aphex Twin.
