PERFORMANCE POETRY REVIEW: J B Barrington: Showing Poetential - The Lowry Theatre, Salford.

J B Barrington is a Salford-born comedy performance poet, who reminded me in looks of Hugh Laurie, whilst reminding me in style and vocalisation of John Cooper Clarke. This was my first innings with Barrington, and I had no idea what to expect; but his egocentric and "couldn't-give-a-s**t" style was obviously a firm crowd-pleaser. The more arrogant and profane he became the more the audience lapped him up.

As a warm-up, a Glaswegian stand-up comedian came on at the beginning of both the first and second halves of tonight's show. If I remember correctly his name was Jim Burke. Sadly this evening, he did very little to warm us up, and managed to illicit only the slightest of titters throughout his both sets. Unfortunately he appeared somewhat nervous and tried to compensate for this, only falling at the first fence sadly. What made this even more offputting was the fact that the gobo used to produce the show's poster image on the rear wall was shining through Burke's face for the majority of his stage time!

Barrington however proved more successful; and his poetry and comedy was mad-cap, disorganised, interrupted, and chaotic... but that was all part of a very cleverly planned and practised routine. Stopping mid-sentence to explain what or why he had written such a phrase, or elabrating and extemporising on his poems seemingly at random. And never too far away from a swearword.

Let's face it; Barrington's poetry is not Shakespeare, and it isn't likely to make him Poet Laureate - but I am sure those are things that would ranker with his working-class grass-roots style in any case. His poems all seem to fit the same rhythmic metre, and all were delivered in the same style (as stated previously, whether intentionally or not, sounding a lot like Cooper Clarke). A few of the poems are very funny, those are the clean ones.. the ones he referred to as Radio 4 material. However, most of his poems contain expletives which could quite easily cause offence; and some are just unbroadcastable!

In the 2 hours in his company, he took us through subjects such as romance, love, his wife, school days, death, car boot sales, suntan on holiday, and traffic wardens! My favourite moments came with his "Revels" advert pun, and his poem "Things Me Mam Used To Say".

Barrington presents himself as a frustrated and angry middle-aged man in menopause with 'issues', which he needs to 'get off his chest'... and if we like them or not, in his own words,  he simply 'don't care'! 

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 2.3.22