Local Boys Done Good is a documentary/live show about five poets (all from the poetry collective Aisle16) going back to their home towns and putting on crap gigs. It was written by myself, Chris Hicks, John Osborne, Joe Dunthorne, and Tim Clare (pictured here, reading a poem to 5 people in a town hall in Quarley).
We’ve only performed it twice: once at our scratch night Homework (of which you can watch most of here), and at Norwich Arts Centre at the end of last year. Hopefully it will happen again sometime.
Catherine Woodward has written an amazing in-depth piece about it for the Scottish Poetry Review, in which she examines the methodology behind Aisle16’s shows, and how the way we approach live poetry differs from other examples of live literature. My favourite quote: “the charm of Aisle 16’s unique style lies somewhere in that it is brilliantly, ingeniously shit.”
Read it here.