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Poetry and performance from Hull's Contains Strong Language festival

Playwrights John Godber and Mark Ravenhill; poets Zena Edwards and Jodie Langford in a Front Row celebrating poetry and performance from Hull's Contains Strong Language festival.

Stig Abell talks to John Godber, one of the most-performed playwrights in the English language and somebody who has been interpreting the city of Hull in his plays for over thirty years, from Bouncers to Up and Under. His latest work This Isn’t Right tells the story of Holly Parker who is rediscovering Hull after three years at University in London. When a young woman disappears her already over-protective Dad goes into over-drive.

Earlier this year the poet and performer Zena Edwards wore a grass coat to Tate Modern to mark the launch of a movement drawing attention to climate change - Culture Declares An Emergency. For Contains Strong Language she’s performing a newly commissioned piece called Rallying Cry. She'll perform and talk to Stig Abell about putting the joy into the poetry of protest.

We'll hear a world premiere performance of a Jodie Langford poem specially commissioned by ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Humberside. She's a rising star of the spoken word scene and one of 12 poets chosen by ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ local radio stations to β€œchallenge the outdated clichΓ©s and celebrate all that is regionally distinctive about the North”.

And playwright Mark Ravenhill on translating Bertholt Brecht's The Mother with original score by Hanns Eisler which will be recorded at the festival for broadcast on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3. Maxine Peake plays Pelagea Vlassova, the woman who acts to protect her son from prison and becomes an accidental revolutionary.

Presenter Stig Abell
Producer Olive Clancy

Available now

29 minutes

Jodie Langford

Jodie Langford

See the poet Jodie Langford perform at the on 28 September 2019.

Listen to Jodie Longford on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3's The Verb from the Contains Strong Language Festival on Fri day 27 September and on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Sounds

Jodie Langford is one of the 13 poets commissioned to write a new poem telling ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Truths about their area, for broadcast on on 03 October 2019. Hear her poem on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Humberside.

Image: Jodie Langford

John Godber

John Godber

John Godber's play Β is at , LondonΒ  from 01 - 05 October, 2019.

Image: Holly Godber as Holly Parker and Frazer Hamill as Dad in This is Not Right.

Image credit: John Godber Company

The Mother

The Mother

Mark Ravenhill's version of Bertolt Brecht's The Mother, a drama with songs written by Hanns Eisler and Steve Trafford is performed by Maxine Peake with the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Philharmonic Orchestra at Middleton Hall, Hull on 28 September 2019.Β  ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3 is recording that live performance for broadcast.

Image: Mark Ravenhill

Zena Edwards

Zena Edwards

Zena Edwards is one of the poets performing at Rallying Cry on 28 SeptemberΒ 2019 at the Old School House Hull; and Zena Edwards and fellow poet Harry Giles are reading at the Hull Truck Theatre on 29 September 2019.

Image : Zena Edwards

Broadcast

  • Fri 27 Sep 2019 19:15

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