EVENT  ⁄  ARTS & CULTURE

Spork! Christmas special

Spork! presents poetry, comedy and live music from Joelle Taylor, Luke Wright, BopaRhys and friends, with carols from the Exeter Railway Band.

Exeter phoenix 

Spork! presents a Christmas special at Exeter Phoenix on 14 December featuring poetry, comedy and live music from Joelle Taylor, Luke Wright, BopaRhys and friends, with carols from the Exeter Railway Band.

Joelle Taylor Joelle Taylor

Joelle Taylor is an award winning poet, playwright and author.

A former UK slam champion, she founded the national youth slam championships SLAMbassadors in 2001 for the Poetry Society and was its Artistic Director and National Coach until 2018.

She is the author of four collections of poetry and is currently completing her debut collection of inter-connecting short stories The Night Alphabet.

She won the 2021 T.S.Eliot Prize for her poetry collection C+NTO & Othered Poems, published by Westbourne Press.

Luke Wright Luke Wright

Luke Wright is a founder member of poetry collective Aisle16.

He has written four poetry collections and several verse plays. His latest pamphlet won the Saboteur Award in 2019.

He has been a regular support act for John Cooper Clarke and in 2007 hosted a two day poetry event at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Exeter Railway Band Exeter Railway Band

There will also be Christmas carols led by the Exeter Railway Band, a traditional brass band originally founded in 1944, and drag artist BopaRhys will be joined by singer Mrs Clause and comedienne Valley Gal for festive songs, jokes and stories.

Spork! Christmas special is at 7.30pm on Wednesday 14 December at Exeter Phoenix.

Tickets cost £8, or £5 for students or under-25s, and are available from the Exeter Phoenix website.

 is membership co-ordinator and community & culture editor of Exeter Observer and a director of its publisher Exeter Observer Limited.

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SOUTH WEST WATER owner Pennon Group has increased its shareholder dividend by nearly 11% to £112 million despite making a pre-tax loss of £8.5 million and being fined £2.15 million after pleading guilty to thirteen environmental offences committed across Devon and Cornwall. CEO Susan Davy said the company, which also owns Bristol Water, had “delivered improvements in environmental performance”

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SOUTH WEST WATER owner Pennon Group has increased its shareholder dividend by nearly 11% to £112 million despite making a pre-tax loss of £8.5 million and being fined £2.15 million after pleading guilty to thirteen environmental offences committed across Devon and Cornwall. CEO Susan Davy said the company, which also owns Bristol Water, had “delivered improvements in environmental performance”

EXETER CITY COUNCIL member’s allowances and expenses came to a total of £409,000 in the year to March 2023, with council leader Phil Bialyk claiming £28,400 and receiving gifts and hospitality at Sandy Park stadium.

The city council has agreed to allow four music concerts at SANDY PARK STADIUM in June with up to 15,000 people in attendance, tickets for which have already been on sale for two months. Its planning committee heard accounts of extreme anti-social behaviour by visitors attending events at the venue as well as other adverse impacts on local residents and imposed traffic and parking, noise, litter and opening and closing time restrictions on the concerts.

An Ofsted monitoring report on DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL CHILDREN’S SERVICES, the fifth since the local authority was judged inadequate in January 2020, has found that the “quality of social work practice across Devon remains inconsistent”. Inspectors found “pockets of better practice” and “some positive changes” but said that weak management oversight, insufficient challenge and poor care planning all continue to cause problems. It also said a high turnover rate in agency social work staff, who make up more than 40% of the workforce, is having an adverse impact.

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