The new wave of literary events
In pubs and arts venues up and down the country traditional book readings are being replaced by a combination of cabaret, comedy and club nights. The results, Alex Clark discovers, are great fun
Alex Clark, The Guardian, Saturday 31 July 2010

Left - Zadie Smith at Boolslam event Zadie Smith at a Bookslam event, July 2010. Photograph: Fung Wah Man

'This is my Fight Club," says Todd Zuniga, the editor of American creative writing magazine Opium and the inventor of Literary Death Match, who is already confusing me with his appearance: strikingly fresh-faced, he tells me he is 35; exuding hipness, he is nonetheless wearing a slightly grotesque white jacket with Miami Vice-style rolled-up sleeves. It transpires that his outfit is in keeping with the evening's 80s theme, chosen to honour Bret Easton Ellis's new novel Imperial Bedrooms. With Ellis in town – he has earlier in the week appeared at the Festival Hall before a sell-out audience – all the whispers in the room are of whether he'll grace tonight's event with his presence.

If, at around 10pm, Ellis did slip quietly into the basement of Concrete, a former industrial space reclaimed for the pleasure of the hedonistic twenty- and thirtysomethings who throng to London's Shoreditch on a nightly basis, he might not have immediately recognised the spectacle before him as a bookish sort of gathering. Literary Death Match was reaching its climax. In the couple of hours before, four writers – Milly McMahon, Clare Pollard, Lee Rourke and Nikesh Shukla – had read their work in strictly timed seven-minute segments, and found themselves the subject of an instant critique from a panel of judges. Among the highlights had been a somewhat painful account of a virginity long in the losing and, from Shukla's forthcoming novel Coconut Unlimited, which tells the story of a group of teenage Asian wannabe rappers in Harrow, the author's crowd-delighting version of Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype".

Now Rourke and Pollard were slugging it out to claim the title; but that involved neither earnest declarations of literary intention nor intricate comparisons of imagery. Instead, in what amounted to a gameshow finale, audience members flung themselves at the stage to the tune of 80s pop songs to declare their allegiance. By the time Rourke, author of the novel The Canal, finally won through, the scene resembled something like Mike Reid's Runaround mashed up with The Late Review. "I usually read in little bookshops in front of about 20 people," Rourke told me. "I guess LDM brings literature to those who wouldn't necessarily step into a little bookshop to hear an author read."

But if the face that Literary Death Match presents to the public is determinedly chaotic and endearingly amateurish, then its rise demonstrates a rather steelier business acumen. Launched in 2006 in New York, it has now enjoyed 97 outings in 23 cities, spreading from Los Angeles, Denver, San Francisco and Dallas to London, Oxford and Paris, where Zuniga now lives. In August, it will take to the Edinburgh stage for the first time, and make a return visit to Beijing's Bookworm bookshop, the scene of the first international Death Match last year. It's no surprise to hear that Zuniga, who originally saw it as a way to promote Opium, now envisages it attracting corporate sponsorship.

Any potential literary angels, however, may note that they are arriving in a bustling marketplace. Up and down the country, particularly in the previously unfashionable areas of densely populated cities, in the spare spaces of pubs, clubs and restaurants, in arts centres and at micro-festivals, a new breed of literary event is flourishing. Often influenced by trends wafting in from the other side of the Atlantic, for example, celebrated New York storytelling event the Moth, and drawing heavily on the relaxed, interactive ethos of comedy nights and bring-your-ukelele music sessions, they are youthful, energetic, imaginative and defiantly lo-fi – and a world away from their rather more strait-laced cousin, the book reading. Just as literary festivals have begun to tend towards the small and to become tailored to their surroundings – the inaugural Stoke Newington Literary Festival, this May, was designed by organiser Liz Vater to pay tribute to the north London enclave's history of radical thinking and included a powerful audience with Tony Benn – so too have standalone events started to reflect the preference for spontaneity and ad hoc amusement of their audiences.


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