19:30 – 22:00 (doors open 19:00)

Starting with some ‘Wordplay Cabaret’ from Mark Blayney; poetry, songs and stories from Alex Wharton and lo-fi alt-Indie music with Folk and Americana influences from Rona Mac. Join us for an entertaining and inspiring evening with our stellar finale night line-up! Each performance will be punctuated with a break and the opportunity to share the buzz with fellow audience members in the Melville bar.

Mark Blayney
Wordplay Cabaret: Yoga for seagulls! Michael Caine! The world’s first poetry magic trick! A quickfire blast of comedy, poetry, poetry-comedy and comedy-poetry from the award-winning MARK BLAYNEY. Einstein! A vicar who loves Kylie! The poet laureate goes to the zoo! Get your seat early, because otherwise, someone else will sit in it.
‘I laughed – then frowned as I realised none of these poems rhyme’ – JOHN SHUTTLEWORTH
Mark Blayney is a writer and performer based in Cardiff. His work spans comedy, fiction and poetry. Mark writes fiction, poetry, scripts and journalism. His novella Two kinds of silence won the Somerset Maugham Prize, his poetry has been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition and my journalism won a Wales Media Award.

Alex Wharton
Alex Wharton is an award winning writer and performer of poetry for adults and children. His First Book of poetry for children ‘Daydreams and Jellybeans’ was shortlisted for the Wales Book Of The Year Award 2022, The North Somerset Teacher’s Book Awards, The Laugh Out Loud Book Awards and was named as a National Poetry Day recommended read.
He is widely published in the sector and has collaborated with Literature Wales, Cadw, The National Dance Company Of Wales, Welsh Government, British Council of literature, Welsh Libraries and many schools, trusts and festivals including Hay Festival and Edinburgh International book Festival.
In 2021 Alex was commissioned by Hay Festival to create a poem with children that would be read to Her Royal Highness, Queen Consort at a ceremony held in Hay-On-Wye. Alex’s second collection of poems ‘Red Sky At Night: A Poet’s Delight’ will be published with Firefly Press in 2024.

Rona Mac
Rona Mac is a trailblazer for expression within music. She is a queer Singer-Songwriter bringing us lo-fi alt-Indie with Folk and Americana influences, crafted in her caravan home-studio in west Wales. Her music comes raw and unfiltered, aching with the kind of nostalgia that comes with rural, rugged places. She weaves satisfying guitar-driven riffs with hooky melodies and she shows the ability in her sophisticated lyricism to reach out to people and make them feel. Her strive for depth and grit evokes the singer-songwriter movement of late 90’s as well as contemporaries such as SOAK, Marika Hackman and Holly Humberstone.
Despite music composition and performance being prominent in her life from a very young age, Rona Mac’s project as a solo musician began in 2020 and she has since released a DIY Debut Album ‘Sheelah’ and EP ‘Shades Of Ham’, exhibiting her captivating talent with music production. Her personal highlights of 2022 are plays on primetime BBCRadio1, BBC6Music and Radio Wales, performing at 6music Fest and Boomtown, and getting featured in Clash magazine. Funded by PRS foundation Women Make Music and Help Musicians UK, she will be releasing a new album in 2023, as well as collaborations with artists Dan Bettridge, Minas and Wil Owen.
https://www.ronamacmusic.com/

*Event price includes booking fee.