Musician Loyle Carner & Poet Laureate Simon Armitage to headline BBC Contains Strong Language 2021

Programmes from across the BBC will also broadcast from the festival which this year is being held as part of Coventry City of Culture 2021

"We are delighted to be bringing Contains Strong Language to Coventry in its City of Culture year, with a wide range of performances from local, national and International poets and many broadcasts coming from the festival this September." — Sue Roberts

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Mercury-nominated musician Loyle Carner joins Poet Laureate Simon Armitage as UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival of new writing returns and takes over Coventry as part of the City of Culture celebrations this year. The four-day festival will showcase some of the best spoken word and poetry artists from the UK as well as a wide variety of programmes broadcast across BBC Radio.

Highlights from BBC Contains Strong Language 2021 include:

Loyle Carner performs his poetry alongside two other well-known British poets: Grace Nichols and John Agard, broadcast live on Radio 3’s The Verb on 24 September

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage reads his poetry and performs with Land Yacht Regatta, who set Armitage’s spoken word to intense, atmospheric musical arrangements by Richard Walters and Patrick Pearson

This Little Relic by Karla Marie Sweet is a metaplay about producing Ira Aldridge’s The Black Doctor, directed by The Belgrade Theatre’s Co-Artistic Director for 2021 Justine Themen. This Little Relic will perform to a live audience on Friday 24 September as part of the festival and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday 26 September

BBC Writersroom is always on the look-out for fresh talented writers across the UK and Republic of Ireland with an original voice, unique characters and great stories to tell. Simon Nelson from BBC Writersroom will provide audiences with information on how to submit scripts, the variety of schemes and some top scriptwriting tips.

For young people, BBC Radio Club is in partnership with Creative Lives to share poems written by Coventry schoolchildren in workshops facilitated by poet John Bernard and produced for BBC Local Radio

Alongside poetry readings and performances, a host of BBC radio programmes will record and broadcast from the festival at venues around the city such as The Box at FarGo Village and The Belgrade Theatre. Programmes from the majority of the BBC’s national radio networks will be at the festival including 5 Live’s Nihal Arthanayake programme; BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and Beyond Belief; Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on 6 Music and BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking, The Essay, The Verb and Music Matters. BBC Radio 1Xtra and BBC Asian Network partner with the Festival to present the Words First Talent showcase, celebrating the most talented poets and spoken word artists aged 18-30 from across the UK, with special guests including British rapper and Words First ambassador Lady Leshurr. BBC CWR will be celebrating local talent, showcasing pieces across all their platforms.

Sue Roberts, Head of Culture, Art and Music for BBC Audio North and Director of the Festival says: “We are delighted to be bringing Contains Strong Language to Coventry in its City of Culture year, with a wide range of performances from local, national and International poets and many broadcasts coming from the festival this September. As the BBC’s flagship poetry and spoken word festival it has been fantastic to see it build year on year and I am looking forward to what the 2021 festival will bring.”

BBC Arts’ annual poetry and spoken word festival Contains Strong Language - a partnership between the BBC, Coventry City of Culture Trust, Writing West Midlands, and Nine Arches Press - is in Coventry for the biggest celebration of poetry ever seen in the region.

Full details of the programme can be found here www.bbc.co.uk/containsstronglanguage. Further information on the community programme of events and ticket booking is available here.

Join the conversation at #ContainsStrongLanguage

Source BBC Sounds

July 27, 2021 4:00am ET by Pressparty  

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