Date: Fri 21 Nov 2003

It's a poetry event, but not as we know it. Jo Colley and Andy Willoughby of Darlington's Hydrogen Jukebox tell Literature North East about the place "where words explode".

How would you describe Hydrogen Jukebox to someone who'd never been there?
JC It's wild - a real happening event. We've got local poets, major national poets, local bands… We've got comedy from the in-house cabaret team. It's about the spoken word and very much aimed at a young audience. It's not like any other poetry event you'll ever go to.
AW If I'm feeling sophisticated I describe it as a cross between Berlin cabaret , beat happenings and the CBGB club - in more candid moments it's the Muppet Show with us and the team as the muppets and the visiting poets as the real people. Can't decide if I'm Kermit or Fozzy though. Jo's definitely not Miss Piggy, she's more like that cool chick one with the sax…

How did it come about?
JC Having been to loads of poetry sessions that were like prayer meetings, we saw what Bob Beagrie and Dougy Pincott had been doing at The Cornerhouse in Middlesbrough and thought we could do something like that. And now we're into our third year…
AW Yeah, we were sick of literary scene type affairs with an 'in' audience and thought we could take the variety format and make a new faster type event with a beat/punk feel that a younger audience than is usual for poetry could own with us. It's the event we both wanted to go to at 18 but it didn't exist, so now we've made it ourselves for and with today's 18-25 year olds. We knew there were a lot of alternative young people in Darlo with nowhere to go to express themselves.

At the cabaret nights, you've got lots of different artforms represented, from music to comedy to poetry and rapping. How do all these work together?
AW Personally, just listening to two or three poets in a row even bores the arse off me, so we knew that to win a new audience we had to show how good poetry can stand next to other so-called more popular forms without grace or favour and hold its own. I don't just mean performance poetry either - our audience has been incredibly receptive to a mixture of styles. Also, the variety style is like music hall, which is a very British thing in a good way. We didn't want to do slams in a bullshit poetry-as-competition American style - we think it's about expression not ego. You can encourage better performance and deliver without introducing that kind of pop idol Übermensch mentality.
JC We recently got a grant from the Arts Council which we're using on a number of different projects but the main thing is that we're expanding the format so that we can commission poets for the evening and get them to collaborate with artists from other mediums. For example, at the next Hydrogen Jukebox we've got Angela Readman, who's a fantastic young poet from Newcastle, performing new work with local musician Shaun Lennox. And at the next event in December, we've got the Leeds Dub Jazz Collective with the magnificent Michelle Scally-Clarke [pictured]. The mixture's very important to us.

Tell us about your work with young people.
JC Our work with young people is very important. Andy works with young people who originally attended Darlington College Performing Arts Department and Q.E. Sixth Form and others who'd dropped out of mainstream education altogether but who are now Millennium Volunteers working as part of the cabaret team, or doing publicity and marketing for Hydrogen Jukebox. On performance nights, they bring along their mates, who then bring along their mates. So there are always lots of young people who decide to have a go on the open mic spots, performing their work in front of an audience of their peers. Once they see that it isn't grim or formal, they might feel like giving it a go.
AW The Hydrogen Jukebox belongs to them as much as us. Now we're running workshops to encourage young poets to get on the open mic which is one of the most important parts of our event (it's open to older people too!) as well as encouraging the cabaret team to write original material. Everyone involved joins MV [Millennium Volunteers] so they get a qualification out of working with us as well as having a great time. Some members of the cabaret team have also formed a theatre in education company, Industrial Pie, to deal with social issues affecting young people's lives. We're currently working on a sex education piece called 'The Moment of Truth'.

Where did the name Hydrogen Jukebox come from?
JC It's from Allen Ginsberg's Howl: "...listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox..." We're both big Ginsberg fans. We thought it was a really cool name and also very fitting. Hydrogen Jukebox - a place where words explode! The expression and energy we connect with the beat generation commenting on things which are happening now.
AW We want to invoke Allen's spirit of engagement, mischief and anarchic expression. I've definitely had the distinct feeling that's he's been present somehow at our best moments - there's definitely a magical feeling in the air in that room sometimes that I've never felt anywhere else and maybe that's why. Also the words juxtapose in a way that makes them seem new and exciting, transformed. Hopefully, that's what happens to poetry in the HJ when it's mixed with other forms. HJ has the feeling of alchemy about it!


COMING UP AT HYDROGEN JUKEBOX

Tuesday 25 November

Rising Newcastle poetry star Angela Readman will read in her usual slinky dangerous fashion, with Tom Waitsian accompaniment from Shaun Lennox of Grangetown. A new piece commissioned by the Hydrogen Jukebox.

Support from stand up poet Kate Fox.

Music from SEX JAIL, HJ's answer to Spinal Tap - to see them is to believe them.

Plus comedy, cabaret and chaos from the HJ cabaret team.

8pm-11pm
Garden Bar
Darlington Arts Centre
Vane Terrace
Darlington

Tuesday 16 December

Afro Carribbean Christmas special

HJ Proudly presents:

Straight outta Chapeltown - Michelle Scally-Clarke and musicians from the Leeds Dub Jazz Collective. One of the most exciting young black voices in poetry today presents a piece commissioned by the HJ based on the Specials' Ghost town - a searing look at life on the edge in Leeds. Michelle has toured with Linton Kwesi Johnson and her work combines powerful poetic images with melody, rap and reggae rhythms in an electrifying combination. Guaranteed to blow your mind.

Also HJ welcomes legendary Nigerian poet Esiaba 'The Minstrel' Irobi, visting from his current residence at Ohio State University - award-winning poet, playwright, radical activist and director and the best dancing poet in the universe. Esiaba will perform from his new collection, Why I Do Not Love Philip Larkin and his exile-causing earlier work Handgrenades. An explosion of expression guaranteed.

Music from Elba.

Comic mayhem from The HJ team.

7.30 pm-11pm
Garden Bar
Darlington Arts Centre
Vane Terrace
Darlington