Luke Wright: Cynical Ballads

Whoever said poetry was dead had clearly never seen Luke Wright. As he reinvigorates an age-old medium in the gloom of the Underbelly, sex and beer tear through the impoverished backstreets of London, the upper classes are speared with rhyme and the human condition is laid unflinchingly bare.

These eight tales of broken Britain are sometimes hysterical, sometimes sweet, sometimes poignant, but always mesmerising. The characters he invents are brought to life by Burton-esque illustrations flashing on screens as he stands alone, preaching to an utterly rapt audience. One particular tale has a woman crying in the row behind. Another provokes an old man to kiss his wife on the cheek. The world, as it turns out, hasn't really changed and poetry is still as relevant and powerful today as it ever was.

It doesn't matter if you can't tell your Yeats from your Keats as Wright explains the history and tradition of the ballad, rightly aligning himself with the greats while never alienating his audience. The end tale, with its backing track and song format, is the only misfire in an otherwise beautiful hour. Wright keeps it simple and devastatingly effective throughout, so there's no need to complicate things with the slightly misjudged melodies of the finale. In saying that, this does not detract from a rare find of a show.

Amid the chaos of the festival, Luke Wright is something unique and rather special.