Luke Wright is touring.
Go and see him if you can - he's a smart, bright talent and while he's excellent at 40-something he'll be even better when he's 60-something.
Many months after Terry's son died I bought tickets for us to see John Cooper Clarke and Luke Wright at our favourite local theatre, Pontardawe Arts Centre.
I wasn't sure if it was a good idea. Terry was bereft and we had pulled up the drawbridge. But we both love John and we'd never seen him live so I went ahead and booked the tickets and mentioned it to Terry in the most offhand manner I could.
Nobody liked getting suited & booted and ready to go out more than Terry did - the getting dressed up was more important than the being out, I think. But these were different times. He didn't want to sit in a theatre of laughing people, not even with Dr John for company. But we went and we sat in the front row. Terry was agitated and bruised and I thought he was going to make for the exit several times.
We didn't know Luke's work at all before we saw the show, and with his skinny jeans, complicated hairstyle and his air of the perpetual student who doesn't get out of bed before noon unless Arts Council funding is involved, he's the kind of person we naturally take against.
But Terry and I both revere talent, so we had to let that go pretty sharpish.
It is impossible not to be charmed by someone who is as in love with the tricks and sucker punches words can deliver if you use them well. He's very good at being funny, but he also has a way of delivering an unexpected heartbreaker to the laughing crowd, too.
Luke spun his irresistible poem about John's boots, and Terry, being a man who appreciated eye-catching footwear, laughed hard.
He told the one about the Essex Lion, the one about Ian Duncan Smith and Ron's Knock-Off Shop (univocalism in O) :
"Two London sloths go North to Bolton.
Oz - proto-fop on lots of pot.......
.....Bolton's got no dons or profs
Bolton's got no dotcom showrooms..."
Here's a newer one I like:
"Someone bring my devil back to me.......
to feed me saturated fats
to mock me as I vomit on my boots
and leave me spent and drooling
on a stranger's food-pocked, Oxfam couch"