As an accompaniment to ‘Home Is So Sad’ the first ever Philip Larkin Exhibition to be held at Beverley Art Gallery, join local poets and writers Vicky Foster and Chris Sewart, together with the Mechanicals Band from Larkin’s home city of Coventry, in a creative look at Larkin’s poetic legacy.

The whole evening is ‘a joyous shot at how things ought to be’, a line taken from Larkin’s poem ‘Home is so Sad’, but this time daring to be optimistic!

7.30 PM, Friday 14th April, East Riding Theatre, Lord Roberts Road, Beverley, HU17 9BE.

Chris Sewart is a writer, originally from Leicester but now lives in Beverley. Chris was the recipient of the prestigious 2019 Larkin Poetry Prize in the East Riding Festival of Words Poetry Competition. He has since won the Gold Prize in the same competition, in 2021 and 2022. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including Smiths Knoll, Obsessed with Pipework, About Larkin and The Coffee House. Chris has just been awarded his MA in Creative Writing, specialising in short fiction.

Vicky Foster is an award-winning writer, performer and poet who has broadcast extensively across the BBC. She has published two collections of writing and is currently working on herfirst novel whilst studying for a PhD in English and Creative Writing. She won The Society of Authors’ Imison Award at the 2020 BBC Audio Drama Awards for her Radio 4 play Bathwater, and her Radio 4 documentary, ‘Can I Talk About Heroes?’ was reviewed in the national media. She has written poetry for radio, podcast and TV, delivered writing projects and creative writing workshops for a wide range of organisations, and performed at festivals and events across the North. She is a writer-in-residence for First Story, working with schools to help young people tell their own stories.

Wes Finch is a Coventry based singer and songwriter and the frontman for the poetry inspired musical group The Mechanicals Band. The band have set words by various poets to new music, most notably an album of Philip Larkin poems and a theatre and music show of the same name called ‘The Righteous Jazz’ about the life and loves of Larkin. They are honoured to provide music for ‘Tiny In All That Air’, the Philip Larkin Society podcast and continue to contribute audio and visual pieces of Larkin poems. For this event Wes will be joined by percussionist and general technical wizard, Ben Haines as they perform pieces from The Mechanicals as a duo.

Book tickets via this link