Contestants from all over the country are lining up to take part in the national final of the Anti-Slam Championships next month. Anti-Slam? Some of the top spoken word artists in the UK will be doing their very best to be the very worst, offering “hilariously terrible, laugh-out-loud embarrassing, entertainingly cringe-worthy poetry so awful that it transcends quality, becoming genius”. The hosts are Paula Varjack and Dan Simpson, and the finalists are: Clair Whitefield (London); Carla Keen (Cambridge); Vera Chok (Oxford); Joy France (Manchester); Luca Rutherford (Newcastle); Stewart Taylor (Southampton); Doug Garry(Edinburgh); Sara Hirsch and Ben Fagan (Edinburgh Fringe); Hannah Davies (York); and Sez Thomasin (Sheffield). It’s on Friday 9 December at Hackney Attic, Hackney Picturehouse, in east London. More details and Map