Special one-off podcast produced in association with Apples and Snakes. The programme was broadcast on Basic.FM as part of 'Home Cooking', curated by Kirsten Luckins.

Three London based poets; Michelle Madsen, Sara Hirsch and Sam Berkson, met by chance on the scene and discovered that they all grew up in, and ran away from, the same sleepy commuter town on the border of Hertfordshire and Essex.

Bishop’s Stortford (famous for it’s easy access to the M11) is not violent enough to be national news worthy, not poor enough to invite crime, not pretty enough to attract tourists and not far enough away from London to be out of its shadow and have an identity of its own.

With its distinct lack of diversity and culture; Bishop’s Stortford became a symbol to these poets of all that is uninspiring. All three left the town for a reason and have done their best not go back. What is it about this place that means they can’t, however hard they try, call it home?

Sam Sara and Michelle brave it back to Stortford for a day to decipher their own experiences and try to re discover the town they left behind.

Have the car parks of a decade ago become thriving cultural hubs in their absence? And what makes the people of Stortford stay there? Grabbing strangers on the street, in the pubs and local figures who knit the town together the three poets want to know what makes the place tick.

Through the medium of spoken word the poets discover whether their feelings about Stortford just stem from normal teenage experiences or whether this town really is the problem child of the South East.

This podcast features Sara Hirsch, Sam Berkson and Michelle Madsen. and was produced by Nick Taylor.

We Need To Talk About Stortford

Recently we headed down to the Southbank Centre to catch The Kudo Quartet. The incredibly accomplished ensemble were playing a piece of particular interest to us over at Annexe; a composition for saxophone quartet and spoken word soundtrack by the Dutch ‘avant pop’ composer JacobTV (Jacob Ter Veldhuis 1951). JacobTV specializes in combining monologues with contemporary classical music, using the voice as another instrument. The voices used come from interviews with all manner of individuals, from Chet Baker to prison inmates serving life. The resulting works are really quite powerful and dense with surprising harmony.

After the concert we caught up with Abraham Minnen, Soprano Saxophone player and Kudo primary, about the performance.

NickTea