Arts > Theatre

Penny Pepper: The Naked Punk

National Writer's Centre : Dragon Hall

25/11/19

“‘Well, my dear, when I look at the world around me, I just don’t think writing is a suitable career for a person like you.’ She smiles like a famished bear.”

Naked Punk Penny Pepper is a polymath of sorts: as a poet, auto-biographer, activist, and singer/songwriter, she is multitalented. Her visit to Norwich’s Dragon Hall, at which she performed poetry and shared witty, sincere anecdotes with the audience, demonstrated her passion for the art of the spoken and written word.

The poetry she performed at the evening fell into two categories. Some of her poetry was political, lampooning austerity with a poetic voice that bared the pizazz of John Cooper Clark. But most of her poetry was highly autobiographical, deftly orating an ‘80s youth full of fascinating characters, punky defiance, and self-expression in a society not built for those who are disabled. ‘Punk changed everything’, she tells us, and her flair, red plaid, and stage presence left no doubt of its influence. On her outfit, she tells us plainly that ‘I wear heels because it’s a defiance for someone like me to wear them.’ As the audience entered Dragon Hall, speakers played the sound of droney, twindly guitars and a melodic, yet cool and flippant female singer. She later tells us it’s her punk band Spiral Sky, which she front-lined in the ‘90s and which was briefly top of the charts in Greece. ‘Not a suitable career for a person like you’, indeed: Penny Pepper has lived a voraciously cool and creative life. 

As a writer myself, I found her anecdotes and stories inspirational. Pepper describes herself as writer first, activist second, with the need and pull to write as something inherently a part of her. She talked about the contemporary re-emergence of the fanzines that she dedicated herself to creating as a teenager. She encourages the audience to try flash fiction, after reading out one of her own. She is witty and well read: after one poem, she delightedly explains, ‘although I am a spoken word poet, I do like the classical form. can anyone guess what that one was? It’s a villanelle! Tricky buggers, they are.’ She explains her teenage love for Anaïs Nin, ‘for the sex. But also the diary writing.’ Not only does she have a rousing passion and knowledge for literature, but she has a talent: for instance, her use of perspective shifts are masterful and gripping, and she has a knack for simple yet powerful one liners. Whilst the cadence of her performances very occasionally slipped into a formulaic slam-poetry type lilt, the content of the pieces themselves were original enough for this not to bother me.

Penny Pepper: The Naked Punk is a fantastic show. Pepper is an intensely watchable stage presence with an engaging poetic voice, full of life, wit and anecdotes. Whilst this was only a Norwich for one night only affair, this isn’t the last to be seen of her: she has a new autobiography coming up, following on from her memoir ‘First in the World Somewhere’. She’s one to watch: if you don’t know her stuff it’s time to catch up, just like I have.