one4review | On 08, Aug 2013

Liz Lochhead’s show ‘Apple Says Aaah – and Other Poems, Pommes and People’ in Studio 2 at the Assembly Rooms is a very genteel start to the day.  Piano music tinkles off the walls as the predominately middle-aged audience take their seats.  As I settled myself and glanced around it became apparent that I was one of the youngest people in the room, and as I hurtle with increasing terror towards my mid-30s it’s not often that I get to say that!

It’s a shame that there weren’t more young people in the audience, as this is surely the way to experience poetry at its best – read by a writer who is both passionate and knowledgeable about the art form.  Lochhead jokes that being a poet is less of a career and more of a diagnosis, but the seed of truth lies therein. This lady has poetry in her soul and it’s a pleasure to listen to her perform.

Lochhead reads from both her own work and the work of other famous poets; Edwin Morgan and Rabbie Burns are both given an airing and she breathes life into familiar work.  Between these performances she talks us through aspects of her career that she has revisited and the central idea she conveys to us through each anecdote is ‘what goes around comes around’.

I particularly enjoyed the early section of the show, which saw her recite work which dealt with early memories of school. There were more than a few laughs of recognition in the audience as she dealt with the foibles and traits of her childhood schoolteachers.  Her reading of Adrien Mitchell’s ‘Back in the Playground Blues’ was also a particularly relatable piece of work.  For most of the hour she held my attention thoroughly and completely.  However, I felt that the last section of the show, where she indulged in some jazz poetry, was a bit weaker and I found my attention drifting.  Nevertheless, if you have a love of literature, of poetry, of art in any of its many forms, then you could do worse than start your day in the presence of lyrical Liz.

Reviewed by Di

Assembly Rooms Studio 2

12.15 – 13.15