Attila the Stockbroker 'Arguments Yard' Fundraiser

Contact: 01633 221477 or http://www.wegottickets.com/event/360766

Attila is coming to play and we are spending ALL the proceeds from the door on most needed items for the refugees in Calais! We'll pick up toiletries and food and drive them over to the Help Refugees warehouse (paying our own costs!) and help out for a few days while we are there!

Support comes from Des Mannay, Tracey Curtis and Andy Blade ex Eater! Incredible line up!

"Launched into public consciousness by the legendary Radio One DJ John Peel in the early 1980s, performance poet, musician, journalist and political activist Attila the Stockbroker has spent 35 years touring the world. He's performed over 3000 gigs in 24 countries, releasing 40 albums/CDs and seven books of poetry along the way, and last September his autobiography 'Arguments Yard' was published by Cherry Red Books. This show takes it to the stage. A mixture of poems, songs and passages from the book. A life in words. Words to make you laugh, cry and seethe with anger, all in one evening.

This is a book, and a show, which is social history and personal story combined: a cultural activist's eyewitness journey through the great political battles and movements of recent times. Rock Against Racism/Anti Nazi League/Anti-Fascist Action, Miners' Strike, Wapping dispute, Red Wedge, Poll Tax, campaigns against two Gulf Wars: Attila has been there, done the benefit and worn the T-shirt.

As well as the obvious places - UK and mainland Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA - Attila toured East Germany four times before the Wall came gown, was invited to play in North Korea and did the first ever illegal punk gig in Stalinist Albania. You’ll hear about it.

But the politics are just a part of the story. Fittingly for someone who describes himself as a 'social surrealist', Attila will make you roar with laughter. He once stood in for Donny Osmond at a gig. Having got an encore as the support act, he was thrown out of a London show by the bouncers on the orders of John Cale, one of his all time musical heroes. His support acts? They've included Manic Street Preachers, Julian Clary, New Model Army and Billy Bragg.

Attila has done every Glastonbury Festival since 1983 and organises his own beer/music extravaganza. Glastonwick, in his native West Sussex. He was at the heart of a 15 year campaign to save his beloved Brighton & Hove Albion FC from oblivion. And he tells of a happy childhood ripped apart by his father's death, his reconciliation with his stepfather after 37 years and how he and his wife nursed his mother through a six-year battle with Alzheimer's.

As already said: laugh, cry and get very, very angry."

Des Mannay -

"Focused on hard-hitting social issues… poems which made a statement”' (Sabotage Reviews). Des Mannay is the winner of the 'rethinkyourmind' poetry competition (2015). Placed 2nd in the Disability Arts Cymru poetry Competition (2015). 'Gold Award' winner in the Creative Futures Literary Awards (2015), and shortlisted for the erbacce-prize for poetry (2015, and 2016) and Welsh Poetry Competition (2015).


Des has poems published in 'I Am Not A Silent Poet' online journal, 'The Angry Manifesto', 'Proletarian Poetry', 'Yellow Chair Review', 'Indiana Voice Journal', and 'Stand Up And Spit'. He has work forthcoming in 'Red Poets' and work in a number of poetry anthologies. Des is on facebook as "The stuff wot I wrote' Des Mannay - hooligan Poet" https://www.facebook.com/The-stuff-wot-I-wrote-Des-Mannay-hooligan-Poet-576397895839781/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel and Twitter as @hooliganpoet

Price: £7.00

Time: 8:00pm