Simon Armitage isn’t in Lancaster this February. He isn’t performing his poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but New Perspectives Theatre Company are coming. They will be at The Grand Theatre with their production of this long told tale, and according to The Guardian the ‘Star of the show is Simon Armitage’s propulsive, voluptuous verse, giddy on its own alliteration’.

I’m often uncertain when poems and actors mix, especially when it’s a poet like Armitage who I grew up reading, hearing read,  being workshopped by and occasionally bumping into at the Byram Arcade in Huddersfield. I even met my wife at a poetry reading by him! From his shared pamphlet Suitcase – with Ann Dancy (now Sansom) and Peter Sansom, through his explosive debut collection Zoom! and onwards he’s been a part of my reading life, except Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – I don’t know why I just avoided it. So you could say his work is important to me and now it’s placed in the hands of a third party – ACTORS – and understandably I worry.

The care and delicacy of a poet’s phrasing often seems trampled by a stronger dramatic urgency, but Armitage’s verse is so muscular that I suspect, I hope, it will remain intact through a theatrical rendering. I suppose the only way to know for certain is to book tickets and read the book. Put another way, in the style of Harry Hill, ‘Which is better poetry or theatre? There’s only one way to find out – Fight!’

To see the show you’ll have to visit The Grand Theatre, Lancaster between the 12th – 14th February and if you want to read it you can order the book now and we’ll deliver it to your door.  If you do both, be sure to comment and let me know what you think.

Here are some theatre and poetry reviews to get you interested and get you thinking.

THEATRE

• A gutsy, no-frills production – spare, down to earth and thrilling. DAILY TELEGRAPH
• An unexpectedly surreal and atmospheric event – the human scale and intimacy of voices raised in a hushed gathering – allowed the poem to breathe. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
• This adaptation, ideal for family audiences, has an appealing sense of adventure, a teasing wit and a marked respect for the original medieval writer. THE STAGE

POETRY

• …thanks to Simon Armitage, we have a translation that not only can you actually read for pleasure, but which also takes you back closer to something of the thrill and wonder the poem would have had in the days when it was composed. It might even be the best translation of any poem I’ve ever seen. THE GUARDIAN click for full review
  
• This is a good and an enjoyable piece of work, but not in the same league as, for example, Seamus Heaney’s version of Beowulf. It seldom becomes truly significant poetry in its own right. For that moment you have to wait until almost the end – page 93, to be exact. THE INDEPENDENT click for full review
• You can tear through it in a night or two — I couldn’t put down Simon Armitage’s compulsively readable new verse translation — and linger over it for years. THE NEW YORK TIMES click for full review

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