It took me a long time to understand why this event is called ‘hatch’. I was thinking, ‘down the hatch’, ‘open the hatch’ – even ‘bury the hatchet’. But the egg-themed publicity makes all things clear: come to Hatch and watch new writing…come out of it’s shell. Now that you’ve been sufficiently distracted by imagining student writers as newborn chicks – onwards! 

The new organisers, Celine Lowenthal and Rowan Evans, deserve serious kudos for selecting such a range of high quality work, and in particular for the accompanying booklet: the ephemeral,  suddenly preserved in a charmingly idiosyncratic format, complete with pictures of komodo dragons and sailing boats. Having a copy of the work performed to read afterwards also throws interesting light on the directors’ contribution: the writers aren’t involved in the rehearsal process, but show up on the night along with everyone else to see what's been done to their script. 

The actors were, without exception, excellent; any quibbles about them reading from scripts while performing were dispelled by a) being informed that they had only had an hour to rehearse and b) the immensely enjoyable feeling this gave of being allowed to attend a very high-quality rehearsal. If you think condiments aren’t particularly funny, you’d be wrong: Salome Wagaine’s sketch of the same name had me in laughing embarrassingly loudly. The premise? Derek likes to rhyme. He also likes to go to the burger shop. Its side-splitting-ness is lost in paraphrase, but you can imagine. The closing piece, Amber Medland’s ‘Elephant at breakfast’ - a literalization of the expression, ‘the elephant in the room’ (stage direction: ‘invisible but real, unless actual elephant can be procured’) - was another the standout.  The dialogue was all done via voiceover: a challenge for the actors, who showed off some extraordinary skill at contorting their facial muscles. Who knew that watching Deli Segal miming eating cereal could be so funny?

From the poets, special mention has to go to James McKnight, who continued stoically with his reading despite having to contend with a persistent ringing phone for much of it. Georgia Wagerstaff’s poem ‘Schmetterling’ was also gorgeously arresting; David Grundy was brilliant and funny and alarming. The poets were at something of a disadvantage simply in terms of stage-time, as most of them only read one piece. But it was all good stuff, well-read – especially given that reading your own work to a packed playroom must be incredibly nerve-racking. 

There was not anything at all wrong with Hatch – the writing was great, the acting, spot on, the direction, expertly whimsical. I just wanted more of it. More condiments. More poems. More eggshells to tread on. Who knows, maybe even a real elephant?