Finale words and flutes and double bass

Swindon Festival of Literature reached its climax at the Town Hall with the annual Poems and Pints event. Duo Glow Globes opened the evening with laid back tunes and were followed by the visual poetry and mime of Jason Maverick. Hilda Sheehan brought the poetry of the bath tub, A Streetcar Named Desire and some ice licking excitement from her new collection ‘The Night My Sister Went To Hollywood’ cementing her place as a new voice to be reckoned with. Brilliant young flautist Daniel Shao played a remarkable piece in tribute to Swindon’s railway heritage complete with whistles and musical steam. Jo Bell filled up like a fountain pen to deliver a beautiful and direct set. Detail is Bell’s home ground with poems about sex (including duck sex) and friendship all containing enough acute observation to draw gasps from the capacity crowd. Matt Harvey, star of Radio 4 and all round good guy returned to the festival his own unique brand of gentleness and humour. Office theft, potato based love poems and slugs were all covered with hilarious aplomb by a real audience pleaser. And to think it was Eurovision night too, what a cultural embarrassment of riches humanity has to cope with at times. Swindon Festival of Literature is 21 next year, no matter how tired we all are now, it can’t come soon enough, this one’s been brilliant.