Literary Death Match

On March 12^th, I attended an event called the Literary Death Match, which was also a part of the Norwich Showcase.  The Literary Death Match, for the uninitiated, is an international reading series that has been produced in cities around the world since 2006. In the Literary Death Match, four authors are chosen to participate. Two go head to head at a time, each of which have seven minutes to perform a piece of their literature. After each round, the authors are judged by a panel of three judges on literary merit, performance, and intangibles. The winners of each round then go on to compete in a final round, called the Literary Spelling Bee, where they have to spell the last names of certain authors. The Literary Death Match normally goes to 40 big cities, such as Miami, Los Angeles, and London, so the fact that it came to a smaller city like Norwich really demonstrates how much of an important literary city Norwich truly is.

In this particular Death Match, the writers chosen to compete were Ted Hughes poetry prize list short lister Martin Figura, Aisle16 poetry collective’s Ross Sutherland, performative poet Francesca Beard, and playwright/performer Siddhartha Bose. The judges consisted of Hay Festivals director Peter Florence, who judged literary merit, stand up poet/author/ukelele player Tim Clare, who judged performance, and stand-up comedian Amy Nicholson, who judged on intangibles. The mix of men and women with different ethnicities shows the event planners were most likely trying to make sure they included a bit of diversity in the event. The event was hosted by Literary Death Match creator Todd Zuniga and the Literary Death Match executive producer Suzanne Azzopardi. The event was held at the Norwich Arts Centre, which is located in an artsy area of Norwich, surrounded by music and art stores along with a variety of restaurants and vintage shops. It also costs six pounds to attend, so one can assume if people are paying to go they must really be interested in the event. This was confirmed later when I noticed all of the audience members were indeed paying close attention to the event, and, based on the many laughs I heard, were quite enjoying it.

When I first walked into the Arts Centre, just like at the past Showcase events, there was a front desk filled with materials advertising the arts. There was also a café/lounge area, where people could go hang out and grab a drink before the show. I noticed a decent amount of people doing just that. Just before the show began, the room completely filled up. I noticed the audience for this event, again like the prior events, was mainly middle aged, with a few people looking like they were in their late twenties. They all varied in types of dress: some were in casual or business casual apparel, while others were quite dressy, wearing…. I think there was a variation because it was unclear how formal this event would be. Some seats in the room were reserved, indicating to me important people would be in attendance. At first, I assumed these seats were reserved for the delegates of the Norwich Showcase as they were going to be in attendance, but, after the host revealed a local poet was in the audience, I then realized that due to the lack of reserved seats, they must have been for him or other authors not apart of the Showcase. Also, when I first walked in, I heard one man who was working for the Writer’s Centre mention something to the women at the front desk about a guest list.

The event atmosphere was formal, yet relaxed. It was organized and carried out very well and seemed to be more for entertainment than scholarly value. The majority of the audience came as a group.  Many of them were drinking wine or beer and left the performance halfway through to get more. Drinking at this event reinforced that it had a more relaxed atmosphere and was more of a fun, social event. Additionally, before the event began, the hosts and participants of the event were seen chatting with members of the audience, making jokes and asking them how they heard about the Death Match and what they were expecting. Again, having this type of interaction at an event demonstrated how relaxed it was. Unlike the other events, most of the workers I saw seemed to be on the younger side, looking like they could still be in university or recent graduates. It was interesting to me that the younger people were left in charge of the “less important” entertainment event whereas the older, more mature people were in charge of running the educational events.

The show overall was very humorous. The hosts constantly made jokes and, if they occasionally messed up, they would go with it and make a joke out of it, adding to the humor. Plugs were also made by the hosts in between each round for the author’s work, as their literature was being sold at the event. This could have been an incentive for the authors to participate in the event. Based on a flip of a coin, it was decided that Martin would battle Francesca and Ross would battle Siddhartha. In each round, one writer performed a humorous piece and the other would perform a more serious one. All of the judges gave positive feedback towards each writer after each round, portraying all of them in an extremely positive light to the audience. Interestingly enough, the judges chose the more humorous performance in each round, indicating they preferred entertainment value over the intellectuality of the pieces. Martin ended up winning his round and Ross won his. They went on to compete in the Spelling Bee, where they had to go into a sudden death round because they were both tied. Ross was ultimately the winner of the Death Match, defeating Martin by a mere one point. After the Death Match finished, the hosts encouraged people to stick around to grab a drink and purchase the works of the authors. On my way out I noticed that many audience members, excluding the delegates, did indeed stick around for a chat with their friends and a drink. Again this shows that, unlike other events, this event was more social and for entertainment. Like the past Showcase events, I noticed a distinct difference between the delegates and the other attendees, as the delegates have done different things from the rest of the attendees. For example, in the past events they would remain after and either have a meal or mingle and in this event they left immediately. This separates them from the rest of the “normal” audience members, therefore making the “normal” audience members the “Other.” To me, it seemed that the delegates did not stick around to mingle with the “Other” because, they being literary professionals, were the elite and therefore had a different agenda from the rest of the audience.