hello and welcome to the show. this is a huge new art installation being installed here in front of hull minster. this is one of many venues taking part in the contains strong language festival. and in this weather i'm glad we've got somewhere to go indoors. have you got room in there for a little one? who is the little one? kate tempest has just finished rehearsing. she is one of the headline acts here at britan‘s biggest spoken word festival. this festival is called contains strong language, four days over 60 acts and if you thought poetry was just similes, stanzas and sonnets, think again. bbc radio 1xtra were here last night. i went last night and it was incredible. but there is much more than rap. you have the stars of poetry like simon armitage, to hollywood

stars like jeremy irons. something for everyone. hello from hull. this weekend we host the biggest festival of poetry and spoken word. swerving to solitude of skies and scarecrows. between the shorelines. i have been known to write a few. it is a rich tradition in lancashire to turn up at a wedding with a ditty but i wouldn't put myself in the class of the great writers i am reading this week in anyway shape or form. it's national poetry day and we hear from some people reading their favourite poems. they have been sent to fry us.

it is exciting to see the hull accent and language taking its place on a global stage. the reason being black and academic doesn't match your perspective... you are sparkly like the wit of your mind... so much there. you can't have a poetry festival without the legend that is the punk poetjohn cooper clarke. he was an absolute gent and he took time out to share tips about how to be a performance poet. the doorbell used to say ding—dong but now it bursts out in to song. if i'm forlorn it ain't for long. could i be wrong or have i fallen in love with my wife? you are the big boss, the boss biz. the ramrod, the head honcho. the boss of all bosses. of poetry. i am going to ask you a favour,

can you give me some advice because i will be on the open mic stage performing one of my poems. i'm glad you asked me that. i am only too pleased to help. number one, dress carefully. i nearly died of a broken heart, i haven't seen my wife four days. how am i dressed right now? is that all right? you obviously in your casuals now. the thing is, you have got to feel comfortable, but also maintain an aura of authority. be sharp and give them something to look at, maybe a shirt and jacket. you have to cut some kind of silhouette. also, we are getting up to point number two now — find a comfortable vocal pitch. let me be your vacuum cleaner, breathing in your dust, let me be your morris marina, i will never rust.

if you like your coffee pot, let me be your coffee pot. you call the shots. i want be yours. you will be talking to them in between poems and discussing what is coming up and thanking them for their applause, but when you are talking to them it is conversation and you have a mic and it is conversational, but when you snap into a poem, that is a number so you are not using the same pitch. what's the lucky number three? don't be too chummy. merchandise, available in the lobby, oh, yes, it is there in the lobby. you could pay less for a t—shirt. i'll be honest with you. not too much back and forth. the whole show in involves speech so you become all too accessible, so you don't want to get involved. you know, people feel it incumbent upon them to comment

upon what you are doing. it is not a conversation, is it? not a conversation. you are there to tell a story. you must nip that in the bud. i could chew the fat all night but there is the ticket buyers to consider. so we have dress carefully, find a comfortable vocal pitch, don't get too chummy. they are the three golden rules. yes. thank you very much. hopefully you might be there to see me in action. i will be there to see how carefully you have dressed. don't miss out. kingston—upon—hull. with advice like that, i will be a professional performance poet in no time. why not? hull has a great reputation for poetry. it is also great in producing ballet dancers. some of the finest in the country took their first lessons here in hull.

they have returned here with the royal ballet for the gala opening of the hull new theatre. they dance with some of the world's best—known ballet companies. joseph caley, xander parish, demelza parish and elizabeth harrod. in september, they made a triumphant homecoming, performing in a special one—off gala in the city where they took their very first ballet steps. this is where you took your first ballet lesson? yes, i was eight years old. xander parish now lives in russia after being the first british person to dance for the mariinsky ballet company. on a rare trip home he went back to his childhood ballet school, which he left more than 20 years ago. shall we go in and see your old dance teacher? lets go.

vanessa. lovely to have you back. it has been a long time. hasn't changed a dot since i was last there. i get older but the studio remain the same. i used to stand here on the bar. your little legs shaking like that. they have got a lot stronger since then. i know, here you have come a long way since. vanessa hooper and her mother taught a string of children who have made careers in ballet. there is zander parish, then at english national ballet, his classmatejoseph caley. joshua mcsherry—gray is also there. andrew mcnichol is a choreographer and at birmingham royal ballet, michael o'hare is a ballet master. at the royal ballet there elizabeth harrod and demelza parish. as well as the man incharge, director kevin o'hare each generation has its dancers from hull.

vanessa and her mum before really knew how to engage with the young dancers, and give them a sense of purpose, taking it seriously and professionally. there are hundreds of these schools around the country, but i don't think many have this track record. to celebrate that, kevin o'hare has brought some former students together to rehearse for the huill gala show. demelza parish will be dancing a new piece. i never thought i would be performing back in hull because we don't do regional tours with the royal ballet so i did not think i would ever be coming back to perform and it feels like a once—in—a—lifetime kind of really. it is gala night, and inside xander parish is among the dancers getting ready to perform. this theatre has a special place for me because it is where i did my first performance

in the pickwick papers at a street urchin. with harry secombe? yeah, i was a young kid, i was eight or nine, eight i think. that was what got me hooked on performing. whenever i say i am from hull i get a similar reaction because there are so many people from hull that are dancers and the real for the names and i don't understand how so many amazing dancers have come from hull, it is quite incredible. theatre seats were sold out and 5000 others watched on big screens in a nearby park. after the show the dancers boarded a bus and got ready to surprise them by appearing in person for the curtain call. the theatre looked amazing and the dancers were incredible and then to see so many people out here was really thrilling. so many dancers who took their first ballet steps in hull have made huge leaps towards the top

of their profession. the gala show brought some of them back to where their journey began. later we will hear from an oscar winner, jeremy irons, who has come to the city to celebrate hull in poetry. we will find out how you move the world's most talked about art show from london to the city of culture. first take a look at everything we have been up to in the past few months. the tenth annual freedom festival for hull celebrated william wilberforce, the anti—slavery campaigner, with over 200 events. there were live performances and pop up surprises and a lecture from kofi anan, the former un secretary general. to paraphrase william wilberforce, we may choose to look the other way, but we can never say again that we did not know.

there have been more brilliant theatre premiers, in including a play byjohn godber and a adaption of a novel a short history of tractors in ukrainian. there was a celebration of mick ronson and his journey from a hull housing estate to rock stardom as the guitarist for david bowie. an old office block was turned into a 1980s south korean police station. it was one of the best but creepiest things i have done each year. if i don't make it out, tell my mum and my dad and my sisters and my brothers that you cannot touch my stuff. 0n the ist of october hundreds of iconic cream phone boxes rang simultaneously and the people

who answered spoke to a character from the year 2097. the hull future is the subject of five sci—fi films that run alongside an interactive app. we are now well in to the fourth season of hull 2017 that runs from october to december. highlights include these photographs by 0livia arthur and martin parr, capturing the essence of what makes hull unique. a new play by maxine peake will tell the story of a woman who campaign for safe conditions for trawlermen and as the year draws to a close there are more large—scale art installations in store, including a light show involving robotic art. so much good stuff so far but one of the highlights of the year is still to come. in december the stage will disappear and this will be the venue for giving out the turner prize. tell us how to get the most prestigious art show out of london and into hull?

i have been finding out. some love it, some hate it, but pretty much everyone has an opinion on the annual turner prize. over the years the competition has become notorious. works like the pickled cows from damien hirst and an unmade bed from tracy and then and lights going on and off and some have asked if it is really art. this year the turner prize has grown up a bit. changing the rules means that two of the artists are over 50 and the techniques are more traditional, printmaking and photography and painting and the subject matter is more political. one thing that started to take me down this road was the idea of someone forgetting where they were. the history of people from the caribbean or the rest

of the world in britain was they could not forget where they were, they had to be constantly aware. the painter hurvin anderson is one of four short listed artists vying for the prize. andrea buttner is a print maker from germany and exploring issues like shame and begging. there are hardly any artist who have researched this iconography of the beggar. it is important for me and coming from my interest in shame and looking at a discourse of poverty in art. lubaina himid paints on crockery newspapers and looks at black identity. sometimes the pattern is on the newspaper to give the black person a kind of talisman to balance up what the text, which is often juxtaposed from quite another story, is doing to undermine that black person. finally, rosalind nashashibi is showing two films.

everything i shoot is on 16 millimetre up until now. it is not that i am thinking it looks a certain way, it is more that it captures a certain liveliness in the image. when there is a permanent state of crisis and war, there are things that are not seen. the actual human beings are lost. every other year the turner prize travels out of london and this year it has come to the city of culture. how do you move this hugely popular show from tate britain to a small, regional gallery? i went behind—the—scenes as an army of curators and technicians and builders got to work. you might think that getting ready for the showjust involve taking down the old art and giving

the walls a lick of paint, but take a look at this. getting ready for the turner prize is a full on construction project. the turner prize co—creator showed me around as they built two proper cinemas to show the films of rosalind nashashibi. we want people to feel comfortable and spend time to watch the whole film. sometimes in a gallery you are on an uncomfortable bench and the room is too cold and the sound is bad and we wanted to eradicate all of that and emerse people in the film. there was a lot of painting to do before the real paintings came in but even that is more complicated than you think. a lot of people who come in and see the show will not realise that all the walls are different shades of white. how many test posts have you gone through? hundreds of them. we were joking about 50 shades of artistic grey! each artist worked with the curators to install their

exhibitions and for lubaina himid showing outside of london has proved no less stressful than being in the capital. the pressure in hull or a city that is not a capital, the pressure is real people, people that you actually have seen in the shopping area are going to be in here looking at this work, just by taking six steps in. that is a huge pressure, whereas in london it is some other intangible thing. then there is the pressure of thejudging. in december we will find out which of these four artists will take away the turner prize. since the exhibition came to hull people have lining up to see it. what do the locals think? i think it is good and it

has a good contrast between modern art and oldish art. it is lovely to see paint used so well. they are very painterly and the colour is amazing. i like the colours of them and how they are different colours of green and stuff. it is not what i would have expected for the turner prize. i have looked around about here and i thought it was going to make the bed by tracy emin look like a masterpiece. no merit whatsoever. it should be piled high, and let alight and let the roaring flames go up to the sky. that would be art. amateur art critics from all over have been having their say including the voice of puppets. i do not understand how people get famous off this art, i don't understand. this one here, their bum

cheeks on that, what for? proof of identity? but what do you think about the art? you might be speechless like that puppet, you might love it, you might hate it, but whatever you think about the turner prize, you are right. we are back at contains strong language and kate tempest is on stage. for a rising star she has accomplished so much. the winner of the ted hughes poetry prize and a mercury prize nominee. one of the other highlights of the festival has been this, poetry written in or about hull.

i, by the town of humber would complain. he is one of the few actors to excel on the stage and the small and big screen, winning a tony and an emmy and an oscar. do i know you? he is still making hollywood blockbusters but he always has time for a bit of poetry. i love being introduced to new poets, which i have been in this programme. i knew philip larkin but i didn't know some of the poets i am reading in this. stevie smith of course. do you write anything yourself? no. i used to. when i was 14 i did. i am worried about my shirt, very worried indeed. i think it is too short shirt for my trousers and a safety pin is what i need.

there is a gap in the middle, it's not that i mind, it'sjust that i think it lacks taste. i'm sure they would be happy to gather. i am not sure of their sex but i think they would make a good man and wife. it would be so simple indeed to fix them together for companionship 's sake, yes, safety pins just what i need. marvellous and well remembered! rather surprised myself actually. you mentioned before about philip larkin and andrew marvell, who is the best? i never compere, i never compare lovers or poets or music, it is just difference. i am glad we do not have oscars for poets, it is ridiculous enough for actors, but for poets it would be stupid because it is about communication. whenever you read

a poem, you will get it differently to you and that is the glory of it. whenever i get a bad review i think, yes, but somebody might have liked it. younger people are getting involved in poetry, what do you think of that? i think it is fantastic. i did a lot of reading with josephine hart was trying to get poetry into schools but i think rap has got a lot to do with it. so much of the time kids spend in this ridiculous shortened language on facebook and twitter and all of that, that actually they are beginning to have fun with language. researchers found that you have the perfect male voice. can you give us some tips on how to deliver a poem perfectly? i recently did a lot of elliott. from radio 4. yes, and as an actor you try to be the connection between the writer and listener

and not get in the way. that is what i try to do with poetry, not perform, but actually work as a communicator of the writer's ideas. i say to people when they are listening to elliott, which is very long, if you nod off, that is fine because he says, for instance, that it is often in that half dream state between waking and sleeping that you are really open to influences. you read philip larkin‘s poetry today. has hull improved since he wrote his verse? i am so ashamed of what i have got to say. i have been in hull for the first time in my life for about three hours. you've mainly you in this room? yes in the walk from the station

on the train ride into hull. i am not someone tojudge hull. but i am intrigued by the affection people have for it. you have to extend your stay! thank you for spending 2a in hull. it has been a real pleasure and i think i will have to come back. that is all from us tonight. we will be back with a very special episode, looking back at the whole of the year for hull as city of culture. it is nearly over, it is so sad. if you want your cultural fix you can head over to this website. goodbye. you are watching bbc news. now on

bbc news a special programme from the cenotaph. the procession for unknown reasons and not come out onto whitehall, they may have changed arrangements because here led —— led by theresa may and jeremy corbyn. leader of the snp on the left, the former prime minister behind, john major and tony blair.