Slammed, but not Dunked

Bookslam, a monthly "performance literature club-night" held in London's Notting Hill, is the brainchild of the author Patrick Neate and Ben Watt, one half of the briefly ubiquitous late-nineties pop group Everything But The Girl, which offers an unusual mix of performance poetry, literary readings, live music and DJs. Having steadily built up a strong reputation in the Big Smoke thanks, in part, to a series of award-winning podcasts, the transition to the rarefied setting of the Edinburgh Book Festival seems nevertheless to be a slightly uncomfortable one. Ably compered by young Scottish author Alan Bisset, the two hour event gets off to a slow start characterised by a series of awkward silences.

First to step up to the mic is recent Aye Write award winner Dan Rhodes, who reads a selection of short stories so short that the end of each is greeted with a few seconds of baffled expectation followed by polite but hesitant applause. Rhodes' stories have an air of cynicism that sits oddly with his cheery stage-presence, and the audience reaction rarely extends further than the occasional raised eyebrow. The situation is hardly helped by his reading of R S Thompson's 'Unposted', whose caustic wit throws Rhodes' own bitterness into sharp relief.

The Scot is followed on stage by performance poet Patience Agbabi who, by way of an introduction, explains that "my stuff is also very bitter and twisted." A much better performer than her predecessor, Agbabi begins with 'Northwestern', a short poem about the unlikely influence that the town of Wigan – through its Northern Soul scene – has had on her work. She continues on to a quick verse about Zimbabwe that gets a distinctly mixed reaction, and then to a series of sonnets in which Agbabi plays a kind of 'agony aunt' to poets including Milton and Shakespeare. It's an interesting idea, but Agbabi's repetition of T S Eliot's oft-quoted maxim that "bad poets deface what they take" ends up as the only phrase that really sticks in the mind.

There's a short break after her last piece, an interesting homage to Josephine Baker, and – while the DJ spins an eclectic selection of soul and hip-hop that would undoubtedly have worked better in a Notting Hill nightclub than it does in a Charlotte Square tent – around a third of the audience seizes the opportunity to make a run for freedom. Unluckily for them, but to the obvious relief of those who remain, the second hour of Bookslam is so enjoyable as to be almost unrecognisable.

Bisset first introduces Luke Wright, whose two shows at the Fringe festival have cemented his reputation as one of Britain's most exciting young poets. Wright launches straight into the autobiographical 'The Company of Men', and his energy and wit temporarily erase all memory of the earlier awkwardness. Following up with two of his more highbrow efforts, the young Londoner has the crowd in the palm of his hand and the woman sat opposite me sums up the mood when she silently mouths "Wow!"

Last up is Roddy Woomble, front man of indie band Idlewild, whose acoustic set reaches its peak with the song 'The Weight of Years', based on Edwin Morgan's poem of the same name. Again audience reaction is mixed, but the majority of the frowns of puzzlement turn to smiles before the end of Woomble's short selection.

Bookslam was clearly meant to take this year's book festival out of its comfort zone, and it certainly does that. With a more consistent line-up this could become an exciting and essential part of future festivals, and when it works it really works. But one senses that this discerning audience needs more than a few sketchy sonnets to hold their attention and to draw them away from the more mainstream events on the other side of Charlotte Square.