The second act on the bill of last night’s performance of Utter! was a lady by the name of Hannah Eiseman-Renyard. She introduced her set by proclaiming a dislike of all things pretentious related to performance poetry and then proceeded to deliver what could only be described as somewhat pretentious renditions of her feminist musings on the state of being a “writer”.

As someone who tries, and more often than not fails, to make a living out of writing, albeit not of the self-referential, poetic kind, that heavily underlined and italicised profession has the capacity to make me wince. Our fragile little egos need some sort of title to convince us that we might, one day, be of some artistic use.

But, I reasoned, perhaps the very pretentiousness of her attempts to present herself as unpretentious demonstrates just how pretentious every single one of us can be. And I was satisfied. How pretentious is that?

I found myself at this particular performance of Utter!, which featured the work of several graduates of the highly regarded Creative Writing degrees at the University of East Anglia, because my pal was in it. Her name is Megan Bradbury, she’s a novelist and, of course, she was unreservedly brilliant. She even provided me with an in joke related to our shared occasional problem with household vermin. She’s great.

I must confess though, had it not been for Megan, I probably wouldn’t have rushed to a sweaty cave below a pub for an hour on a Tuesday night – all that pretentious stuff, you know? But what was refreshing, whether the work was to your taste or not, was the honesty and commitment of all the performers and the variety the hour-long programme achieved.

Ok, so Eiseman-Renyard was a bit wanky, but she was brave and not afraid to be proud of her work. Molly Naylor was touching and funny, with a gift for expressing those small, awkward gestures that pass between human beings that we would often prefer to forget. Ross Sutherland was a talented wordsmith and performer, entertaining and acutely observant in equal measure. Megan, as I mentioned, was great.

Utter! runs until 29^th August with a different line-up every night and an extra special two hour performance on Monday 23rd. So grab yourself a cheapish-for-Fringe-prices beer from the Banshee Labyrinth and prepare to be entertained.

Vikki Jones

Utter!

Venue 156, The Banshee Labyrinth, Niddry Street

7.30pm (1 hour), 6.30pm on Monday 23^rd August (2 hours)

Part of PBH’s Free Fringe – no ticket required but donations very welcome

For full details of the line-up visit www.utterspokenword.com