Adrian Mealing | awritersfountain

Last Wednesday night I managed to get across to Malvern for Confab Cabaret -always a great fun night with Amy Rainbow and Catherine Cresswell! We were back in Oliver’s again – they have had to nomadically shift venue after the Confab Club closed.

The furniture was the other way around to last week and I preferred it – a cosier performance space. The 2 minute slots were fab and varied – including a chap on a tin whistle. I loved seeing Adrian Mealing in action again, a great poem about his son!

I was very excited to see Dizraeli and he impressed me so much. I have seen him on You Tube, but in real time, he was amazing. I see a lot of beat poetry in Birmingham and although it’s not my thing I can appreciate it, Dizraeli crosses the line though – he is more than a beat poet – he blends folk and beat and there is a story, a moral, a heart tug. His set was a mix of music and words – he was superb, and just playing on and on – his set could have lasted forever as far as we were concerned, but he had a gig at the Grizzly Bear in Birmingham so he had to stop at some time!

He had never been to Malvern and I am happy to say Malvern was ready for him, by the end of his set I think he had melted us all!

It was a great night and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The group poem about graffiti* was compiled and read by Myfanwy – humorous and great as usual.

* Banksy has hit Cheltenham and Malvern! 🙂

When I wrote this post https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/an-afternoon-of-editing-haikus-rehearsing/ on Wednesday I didn’t expect to spend so long writing Haikus. I wrote 21 Haikus for What’s the Agenda? Before getting ready for Confab Cabaret, I didn’t have time to rehearse but did a quick run through and it was one of my favourite poems. I know it quite well.

Confab Cabaret was conceived by Amy Rainbow, Catherine Crosswell and Adrian Mealing. It was named after the original venue- ReCon, which sadly closed down at the beginning of the year. Not only have Amy and Catherine kept up the monthly evening of Open Mic and booked performances, they have faced the challenge of finding new venues each month.

Last month we were in a plush function room in a hotel and this month we were in Olivers, a very red bar, that usually shows sports and had accepted us creatives piling in instead.

Now I am a firm believer that part of the fun and energy of these events I go to comes from the Compere/ MC/ organisers, there is an awful lot of ‘beside scenes’ work that goes on and for Amy, Catherine and Richard the transformation begins as soon as they reach the venue- tealights on tables, the Poet-Tree*, the silliest raffle prizes all have to be displayed, the PA system and everything else besides.

I was really looking forward to this event, as I had such a great night in February and the headline acts were the Decadent Divas and Men in General. Over the past 10 months I have met all the Divas and seen them perform individually. And Men in General are a talented five-piece acapella group, definitely worth seeing if you have a chance – look out for gigs in the midlands. Hereford is there next stop, I believe.

Catherine had baked cakes, Myfanwy had made vegan flapjacks and the party was in the full swing from the get go.

Spoz – there very first headliner was there too and treated us all to a Jeremy Clarkson poem!

Myfawny did Foxpops – the audience all get a piece of paper to write 1 -2 lines on and she has the task of sellotaping it all together and making a poem, which she then bravely takes to the stage and reads.

You can read the audience poem here (Warning – a bit risky in places) the theme was parties.

I had a great night and shared a poem in one of the #prepare to share slots. People seemed to like it. And thanks to Catherine’s generosity I also got to choose a silliest raffle prize. A book of quotations I thought I might use as prompts for writing new poetry.