North East & YorkshirePoetryReviewSpoken Word

How to Starve an Artist – Theatre Deli, Sheffield

Reviewer: Sheila Stratford

Writer: Rose Condo

Rose Condo is an award-winning performance poet and educator from Canada who has lived in the United Kingdom for the past twenty years.

She opens with a tongue-in-cheek poem imagining a world that would be so much better without creativity. She suggests getting rid of any creativity that children and adults might exhibit, stamping it out for a better more organised, hardworking, money-orientated society. A place where artists are time deprived.

Unnamed 2

She performs a rich variety of poems throughout her show ranging from an imagined creation story to an amusing poem about her body, to a story of homelessness. Her poetry is interspersed with prose that flows seamlessly between the poems. She is interesting, thought provoking and we learn something of her Canadian childhood.

Despite the opening, Rose encourages her audience to be creative, to find time to allow for creativity. In order to feed the audience’s creativity, a unique and entertaining element of her show is to give everyone a goody bag, a ’Starving Artist Kit’ that contains a small paper cup. Rose fills everyone’s cup with water to refresh her audience. She gives out sandwiches which she makes on stage, and passes around a tin of sweets. She invites people to have the sweets first (the dessert) alluding to the fact that if we fill up on the mains there is no room left for the creativity, that is the dessert.

Her performance is very polished and amusing and touches on some important social issues. She brings in playfulness and enables reflection. However, if she were to encourage her audience to participate more and dare to introduce an element of spontaneity into her performance it might allow the audience to better tap into their own creativity.

Rose Condo comes across as a warm, considerate poet who nurtures and feeds her audience.

Reviewed on 23rd November 2023.

The Reviews Hub Score

Sparking creativity

Show More
Photo of The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East

The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East

The Yorkshire & North East team is under the editorship of Jacob Bush. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.

Related Articles

Back to top button
The Reviews Hub