Toll

“Performance poetry’s key revivalist.” MetroLuke Wright writes bawdy bar room ballads about small town tragedies and Westminster rogues. His fast paced, witty poems are crammed full of yummy mummies, debauched Tory grandees, maudlin commuters and leering tabloid paps. His live shows are enjoyed by thousands of people across the world every year, where he mixes the wistful with the downright comic to take audiences on an incredible emotional journey.Since 2006 he has written and performed eight one man shows, touring them to top literary and arts festivals from Australia to Scotland via Hong Kong and Bruges. In 2015 his debut play (in which he also starred) What I Learned From Johnny Bevan won a prestigious Fringe First Award at The Edinburgh Fringe, also bagged Luke The Stage Award for Acting Excellence. In 2017, his second full poetry collection - The Toll - was published by Penned in the Margins and toured the UK. Luke Wright's second verse play, Frankie Vah, debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017, with publication and a national tour to follow in 2018.

REVIEWSSharp, gritty and warm by turns ... an overview of the mingled corruptions, humour and blessings of living in ... modern Britain.THE SKINNYLife in today's Britain takes its toll on so many, including the characters in the poems, and no contemporary poet understands or conveys that better than [Luke] Wright.JACQUELINE SAPHRA, THE POETRY SCHOOLThe Toll is a rich collection that is diversely peppered with the comedic and the moving. A master of sound, [Wright] invokes the traditional poetry canon and places it with the decidedly modern reflections of the state of England in 2017.CHLOE VAUGHAN, THE MANCHESTER REVIEW_PRAISE FOR LUKE WRIGHTVisceral, poignant and riotously funnyTHE SCOTSMANCelebratory, mournful, critical and tenderPOETRY LONDON

• O England Heal My Hackneyed Heart The Slow Days A12 Dad Reins Essex Lion Hoax Spad The Ballad of Edward Dando, the Celebrated Gormandiser Thunder, Lightning, etc. VAD Hospital, Saffron Walden, 1915 Watch The Pretender The Much Harpingon One-way System One Trick Bishop The Bastard of Bungay IDS The Toll Kelvedon - Liverpool Street The Back Step Family Funeral Sue's Fourteener Ron's Knock-off Shop On Revisiting John Betjeman's Grave The Minimum Security Prison of the Mind David, at 68 Lullaby Hungover in Town, Sunday Morning Burt Up Pub The Ballard of Carlos Cutting Swimming with Aidan, aged 4 Essex Lion (... continued)