Name: UTTER! Lutonia
Start: 2025-03-06T20:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-03-06T22:00:00+00:00
Location: 65 Bute Street, LU1 2EY Luton, United Kingdom

Poetry, Stories, Activism and Ancient Folk
An eclectic UTTER! to begin 2025. Helen Ivory (Lutonian born!) and Martin Figura bring their long tour supporting their new collections (Helen's 'Constructing a Witch' and Martin's 'The Remaining Men') to Helen's hometown of Luton for a triumphant celebration of the unconventional woman and the tender, considered man. Alongside these we have the fluid and dreamy stories of Laura Mugridge, the belly-deep songing of Jack Sharp, the 'progression free survival' of Kat Joyce (of Tangled Feet) and fresh new poetry from Laura Cooper.
Scroll on for further details . . .
Helen Ivory
is a poet and visual artist who makes shadowboxes and collage. She was awarded a Cholmondeley Award by the Society of Authors in 2024. She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears and teaches for the National Centre for Writing Academy. Her surrealist chapbook Maps of the Abandoned City was published by SurVision in 2019 and the poem The Square of the Clockmaker is riding the rails as one of the Poems on the Underground. She has work translated into Polish, Ukrainian, Croatian, Spanish and Greek as part of the Versopolis European poetry platform. Her Wunderkammer: New and Selected Poems appeared from MadHat in the US last year. Constructing a Witch (October 2024) her sixth collection with Bloodaxe Books, is a PBS Winter Recommendation.
Martin Figura's
collection and show Whistle were shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and won the 2013 Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show. Shed (Gatehouse Press) and Dr Zeeman’s Catastrophe Machine (Cinnamon Press) were both published in 2016. In 2021 he was Salisbury NHS Writer in Residence; the resulting pamphlet My Name is Mercy (Fair Acre Press) won a national NHS award. A second pamphlet from Fair Acre Press Sixteen Sonnets for Care came out in October 2022. His latest collection The Remaining Men has just been published by Cinnamon Press.
Laura Mugridge
Laura Mugridge is an award winning theatremaker and dramaturg. Her work focuses tiny details and she loves to combine the epic and the domestic in her stories.
Her first solo show Running on Air won a Scotsman Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010 and was featured on the BBC’s Culture Show.
She is currently touring ‘Paul and Laura Don’t Give A Sh*t,’ a new show with Paul Macauley as well as developing a new semi improvised audio sitcom together.
She specialises in autobiographical theatre and loves to take the audience on an adventure.
Jack Sharp
Jack Sharp is perhaps best known for his singing and guitar playing with psych rock bands Wolf People and Large Plants, however he’s been quietly exploring folk music from the English tradition all the while, especially with songs from his local area. As a solo artist, his traditional material is plaintive and intense, dark and history-soaked: a unique English voice that gets right to the heart of it.
Kat Joyce
In 2021 Kat’s immune system went rogue and tried to K*ll her. 600 hours/several gallons of chemotherapy and a full system reboot later, she’s feeling…..contingent.
Kat is usually found directing, not performing, and this is her testing out an idea - so be kind (but no pity, thanks). Kat takes us on a delve through ‘Progression Free Survival’ leaving a trail of unwanted silver linings.
Laura Cooper
I am currently under construction - thank you for your patience
Luton born writer, neo-victorian hoarder of literary treasures, academic adventurer, and impassioned poet. From life to death and everything in between. From soliloquies pondering how much cheese is truly too much, to works exploring the intrinsic balance between life and death. Her works tackle themes of grief, growth, and goblinesque existence in a time of ever increasing uncertainty.