Ronnie Scott’s/ Jazz Verse Jukebox
Siddhartha returns to Jumoke Fashola’s Jazz Verse Jukebox night at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s jazz club.
Posted March 22, 2013
Anthologies/Interview
Some of Siddhartha’s new work is now available in two new major anthologies, The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, edited by Sudeep Sen and published earlier this year in India, and Out of Bounds: British Black and Asian Poets, edited by Jackie Kay, James Procter and Gemma Robinson for Bloodaxe Books. In January 2013, more poetry will appear in another Bloodaxe anthology, Dear World and Everyone In It: New Poetry in the UK, edited by Nathan Hamilton.
Earlier this year, Sid conducted an in-depth interview in the international literary journal Wasafiri with author and musician Jeet Thayil regarding his debut novel Narcopolis. The novel was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012. A full transcript of this interview is now available online. Read it here.
Posted November 13, 2012
The LPC Experience
London’s Perverted Children played to packed houses and standing ovations for five nights at ‘The Theatre of Great Britain’ festival at The Yard Theatre in July 2012.
Below are a few blurbs on the show:
‘Experiencing London’s Perverted Children is to be drawn into an aural dynamo, a magnetic dream of sonic and visual collage that sources the real urban life of London’s East End. Bose’s poetic force drives this generous evocation of the local: we are shown the underbelly of official histories and place names, a dark world that lures us in with every beat and every word, which is impossible to forget.’
Sandeep Parmar, author of The Marble Orchard (Shearsman, UK, 2011)
‘The work was strong, engaging and skillfully executed. Mesmerising stuff. Cool dancing too.’
Anthony Joseph, Anthony Joseph and the Spasm Band and author of Bird Head Son (Salt, UK, 2011)
‘London’s Perverted Children is an outstanding monument to Hackney. Amid an illuminating fusion of poetry, modern folklore, visuals, an exceptional soundtrack and beatboxing, the show shines out from the synthetic shadow of Olympic London. This is the most impressive piece of fringe theatre I’ve seen in London for a decade.’
James Byrne, author of Blood/Sugar (Arc, UK, 2010)
London’s Perverted Children was developed with the support of The Leverhulme Trust and the Department of Drama at Queen Mary, University of London.
Photographer Antonio Curcetti took some polaroid shots of the collective. See all the pics here.
Posted September 24, 2012
London’s Perverted Children, July 10-14 2012
Hi all. I will be performing my new show, London’s Perverted Children, at the wonderful new amphitheatre at The Yard, Hackney Wick. The show is a part of ‘The Theatre of Great Britain’ festival that runs from 3-28 July 2012. It is a different beast from Kalagora (the play), and I’m excited to be working with live music on this one. Zoltan Nagy (electronics) and Tobias Hug aka the ‘Black Forest Ghetto’ (vocals, beatbox) are the musicians on board. Tickets and further details are available here. It is a piece that is rooted in East London, particularly Hackney, which is undergoing rapid change due to its proximity to the Olympics. The piece will also feature street photography as well as some A/V work and video design by Kent Hugo. I’ve set up a Flickr account, which I’ll be updating on a regular basis.
And here are some new East End photographs:
The focus is on the relationship between the grotesque and the city.
This show, which follows the work done in Kalagora, marks another step in engaging with these stories.
Posted June 18, 2012
Kalagora in Poetry Review
Kalagora the book was reviewed by Todd Swift in the winter edition of Poetry Review. Below are excerpts:
Bose is also a “hybrid” poet, in the post-colonial sense of the term – his work in Kalagora aiming to merge, bridge, fuse, and intertwine (as they say), the diction, themes, and experiences, of various centres, some cosmopolitan, others less so, in a far more earnestly engaged (and academic) way than Daljit Nagra does. It may be a rule of thumb that the more experimental the poet, the more serious, the less funny. This is the kind of poetry with yin and yang in it, and lots of indents.
You can get this excellent edition of the journal here
Posted May 23, 2012
Three cities, three experiences, one man
Last night Siddhartha and I travelled to the chilly, hilly North East to present Kalagora at The Central, Gateshead. It was promoted by anarchic spoken word and music night Trashed Organ in association with the brilliant arts organisation GemArts, and the whole thing was part of the Festival of Belonging.
The Central is a lovely old boozer, a stone’s throw from the famous Tyne Rail Bridge. It serves fantastic ale and is decorated with dozens of posters and paintings of trains and railway stations. The upstairs room is a far cry from the well resourced theatres we’re used to touring to, so it was a challenge to transform the space into the three cities of Kalagora’s global journey. Nevertheless, it was a really fun show, and we had a great response from the audience. Big thanks to everyone who came down, and to John and Melanie (Trashed Organ) and Vikas (GemArts), our lovely hosts.
- Tom (Kalagora Producer)
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Blog reviews
This was a tight script. Fast paced, bursting with ideas, with rich impressions and still telling a roller-coaster story. I was there. This was a conversation. Ingenious and unforgettable. (More…)
Bose’s rich use of language and physical performance reaches out to the audience: this [is] not just a poetry reading. (More…)
It is perhaps too easy to compare elements of Kalagora to Dante’s Divine Comedy or William Blake’s infernal London, or even Joyce’s Ulysses, but those are the works that this brought to my mind. Kalagora would be a decent show if it just stuck to that, so what made this dazzling performance shine was Bose’s energy – from melancholy to rage; hope to despair – Bose and his riotous trip across the globe brought all the power of a full-cast, 3 hour play and bundled it into a one hour, one-man (and one director) package that resonated far beyond the confines of its explosive performance. (More…)
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Photos by Spurious Nonsense (Jonathan Parker)
Posted May 3, 2012
