Verbose at The King’s Arms
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature EditorVisit now
Verbose
The Kings Arms, Chapel Street
30 June 2025
Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.
Verbose is one of Manchester’s longest-running spoken word events, celebrating its ten-year anniversary in January, and in June, their invited headliners are big names Tom Sastry and Molly Naylor.
“A magician of deadpan”, said Hera Lindsay Bird and Tom Sastry says he is “political, ironic, emotional, morbid and funny in all the wrong places”. His new collection Life Expectancy Begins To Fall is a book about people whose retirement plan is dying in the climate wars and whose current plan is pretending everything is normal. It was described by Costa Award-winning poet Jonathan Edwards as “the most important – and certainly the most entertaining – book about the end of the world I’ve yet found”. Sastry’s previous books have been (variously) Poetry School Book of the Year, Poetry Book Society pamphlet choice, highly commended in the Forward Prize and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize. Former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy said: “Tom Sastry navigates the mysterious everyday…making friendships and love affairs new and strange.”
Molly Naylor is an award-winning poet, scriptwriter and graphic novelist. She is the co-writer and creator of Sky One comedy After Hours. Her plays have been toured nationally and broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and she hosts the creativity podcast Making Trouble with Molly Naylor. Her third poetry collection, Whatever You’ve Got, is published by Bad Betty Press and her debut novel will be published in 2026.
The latest line-up of hosts Ilaria Robinson-Passeri, Alicia Fitton, Becky May and Alice Godliman have continued to keep the Verbose spirit alive, curating guest performers and a talented bill of open mic acts that includes newcomers as well as writers with decades of experience for a really welcoming night showcasing a vibrant mix of spoken word and live literature. They’ve also maintained an amazing audience and say: “Verbose would not exist without its loyal followers, contributors and supporters and we would love to be able to thank you in person.”
To enter the draw for an open mic slot, you need to drop the team an email to verbosemanchester@gmail.com
