Emma McAlpine attends the launch of Dialogue Festival, a four day celebration of conversation and the spoken word.
“This is the third gig I've done in a church”, announces Robin Ince who, for a well known atheist, seems rather keen on large religious buildings. He is hosting (and curating) the opening night of the First Direct Dialogue Festival, a brand new spoken word event held over four days, in three different venues in Notting Hill. Each night has a different theme with special guests chosen by the curator. Ince’s theme tonight is ‘Debate’ and I have tickets for the biggest venue – St Peter’s Church – where the majority of the night’s events are going to be held. BBC6 hero Adam Buxton is due to present a performance of his music video show BUG, and Ince will be hosting a debate on whether technology has killed the art of conversation with fellow comic Simon Munnery and comic (the other kind) writer Alan Moore.
Buxton introduces his BUG show as “me showing you a bit of my stupid crap”, but it’s very funny crap. Projecting the contents of his laptop on a big screen, he takes us through some of the important jobs he’s been doing recently, like ‘sexing up the months of the year’. Up pops ‘Vajanuary’ followed by ‘Febyouhairy’, ‘Poon’ you get the idea. Many of his visual jokes are simple and daft, in the best possible way.
He also shows us some of the most visually creative music videos he’s found on YouTube, dissecting them with customary enthusiasm and wit. A highlight of any BUG show is when he reads out some of the best inane comments left under each YouTube video, getting into character as he goes along. “Fuck you douche bag and die in your dad’s cum!” is definitely an insult I’ll have to remember next time someone crosses me.
After a short break, we return to watch Ince, Moore and Munnery in debate. Munnery approaches the argument: ‘Has technology killed the art of conversation?’ from a typically skewed perspective, preferring to argue with the wording of the question rather than answer it. He makes a good point about the stupefying effects of watching television (“It’s like putting your mind into valet parking”) and a brilliant literal interpretation of the question that prompts a nervous laugh from Ince: “Hiroshima – that shut a lot of people up.”
Alan Moore agrees: “As communication has increased, the quality of the content has decreased. ...The wireless telegram – that was the start of the rot.” In fact, much of the debate agrees with technology destroying the art of conversation. It’s a shame we don’t hear more from Ince who as a keen Tweeter, would surely be technology’s advocate. Instead he acts as a mediator and steers the debate back on track whenever Munnery or Moore go off on a tangent.
We also hear some ‘debate’ themed stand-up from Ince, although this is basically a normal set for the argumentative comic who tells us about various comical rows he’s been embroiled in recently. My favourite is his refusal to let producers call his scientific Radio 4 show ‘Top Geek’ (It’s now called The Infinite Monkey Cage) because it conjured up “images of me in tight jeans standing next to a particle accelerator”.
The night is capped off with a short but sweet meander into the crazy mind of Alan Moore seemingly pitching us an idea for a children’s TV series, where God, Hitler and himself drive around in a camper van solving mysteries. Where were you during my childhood Alan Moore? Scooby Doo would have been blown out of the water.
In fact, the only thing really wrong with Dialogue is that it doesn’t feel like a festival. You have to pay per venue (rather than per show) and are therefore tied to one place. I wanted to see a debate on the roots of music and the Literary Death Match going on at Under The Westway but I’d have had to pay an extra fiver to get in and miss the debate on technology at St Peter’s. Small grumbles aside however, it’s been a wonderful evening, full of laughs and stimulating conversation. In this, Dialogue has surely achieved what it set out to do – remind us just how much talking still matters.
Dialogue Festival runs in various venues in Notting Hill until Sunday 6th November. Click here to see all remaining shows.
www.dialogue.firstdirect.com
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