Henry Raby: Hope and Anger

Henry Raby brings Hope and Anger to the York Theatre Royal on Tuesday 14 October, starting at 20:00. It's a spoken-word show that sits somewhere between poetry and comedy, and it's playing in the Studio, which for this season is being run as The Old Paint Shop and set up as a cabaret club.

Raby is a punk poet with twenty years of experience in performance poetry. He's known for a style that's playful, passionate, anarchic, and high-energy, and he's a co-founder of Say Owt, York's own poetry organisation. He's taken his work to festivals across the UK, including the Edinburgh Fringe, Deer Shed, Latitude, Greenbelt, and Boomtown Fair, so this is a local name with a fair bit of ground covered.

Hope and Anger is described as a cocktail of spoken word that blends poetry and comedy. The title gives away the territory: it looks at the tug-of-war between hope and anger, and it's framed as an urgent reminder that crossing your fingers and hoping for the best isn't enough. It's the kind of set that leans into the tension between the two rather than trying to resolve it.

Because it's part of The Old Paint Shop season, the Studio is transformed into a cabaret club for the run, which should suit a punk poet's energy better than a standard theatre seat. The show is on 14 October at 20:00 at the York Theatre Royal.