I’d never been to Wakefield before but felt confident that a “Red Shed” would be easy to find. How wrong I was. Trying to navigate round Wakefield is to be blind, deaf & drunk in a labyrinth that is constantly changing. There is a dearth of street signs, locals are from Eastern Europe or “don’t do street names mate” and the powers that be seem to be gleefully tearing up the town centre so that even those who have lived there for centuries wander around in a daze wondering where they are.

So how I actually found the Red shed remains a bit of a mystery. My colleague, David Andrews from Leeds, found his Satnav kept constantly advising him to go down streets that patently did not exist, luckily he had a compass and the innate sense of a homing pigeon [wait a minute, a homing pigeon only knows its way home you idiot: ed.] and arrived there many hours before me along with the rest of the forty or so audience.

Having said that, the Red Shed is unmistakeable, it is a shed and it is painted red, so once you stumble across it you know you are there. I parked in the nearby Conservative club car park which, I was informed later with some glee, had been closed since Maggie was the PM – closing as she was deposed as premier, the Red Shed is a Labour club by the way.

Like a Welsh country pub, as I walked into the bar all conversation stopped. Jimmy Andrex popped his head round a door and said, “You must be from Bolton!” Was it that obvious? Do I have it tattooed on my forehead?

“A pint of Guiness please” I ordered from the bar man. He started looking all around the bar for the black stuff with a puzzled look on his face, “You won’t find it there,” opined someone, “we don’t sell Guiness.” “Oh yes!” said a suddenly relieved bar man “we don’t sell Guiness”. I ordered a cheap pint of mild instead, that’s one of the great things about the shed, you can look flash to all your mates by buying a round that doesn’t need you to take out a mortgage.

Stop blathering, I hear you thinking, get on with it!

Well this new night has an unusual format for a largely poetry night. Like the folk club events of yore this one has the main guest, in this case Bradford Poet Laureate Gerard Benson, appearing in both halves, the other guest appears only in the first half and the open floor (one poem apiece) occurs after the break before the main guest’s final set.

As you are welcomed into the venue, and they are a very warm and hospitable crew, you are given an entry form for a short-poem competition that is judged after the break. I like the idea of this competition and it did produce a diverse selection of entries. Though how the selection process actually works is unclear to me and I thought that the winning poem, based on the ancient, dubious children’s joke with the punch-line “two wongs don’t make a right”, wasn’t actually the best. But then again what do I know?

As to the performances… I arrived half way through the first guest’s spot, Sabrina Piggott, apologies Sabrina. Some of you may have seen Sabrina performing in Siobhan MacMahon’s “ In the mouth of the cave” which seemed to be everywhere last year. Now she was solo (though I noticed Siobhan in the audience) and she gave a great performance with assured guitar playing and a lovely, pure voice. Her set contained a mix of covers (is that what you call them when they’re traditional folk songs?) and some striking, original work. At times she seemed to surprise herself with a sudden trill that came from nowhere but this only added to an already delightful performance.

The star of the show was a revelation to me i.e. I’d never heard of him until the night. Gerard’s first set comprised a long poem about his childhood and relatives in London, it was in the form of fourteen interlinked sonnets where the last two lines of one sonnet were repeated and started the next one – then a last sonnet which consisted of the opening line of all the others. Or something like that…I seem to remember him saying the only way to construct it was to write the last sonnet first.

His second set was much more knock-about and joyous with selections encompassing work for children and adults. A hugely enjoyable experience – thanks Gerard.

The 6 or so open floor spots were an interesting variety of styles and content and worked well in the overall mix of the night.

So all in all a “reet gud neet” that I can thoroughly recommend to anyone in the West Yorks area.

Interestingly, all the roads out of Wakefield are clearly sign posted – I wonder why?