An Audience with TORIA GARBUTT

The CAT Club's 'Sunday Showdown' presented the extraordinary ‘High Priestess of The Spoken Word,’ TORIA GARBUTT in a brutally honest conversation, followed by a stunning performance.

Gary ‘Guestlist’ Lethbridge was in the interviewers’ chair.

Since bursting onto the scene in 2014, Toria Garbutt has been a regular tour support for Dr John Cooper Clarke, most recently on his ‘Luckiest Guy Alive' tour on which Toria performed extensively at venues across the UK and Europe.  

In 2016, Toria released her début album 'Hot Plastic Moon’ with spoken word label Nymphs and Thugs and in 2018 her début poetry collection ‘The Universe and Me' was published by Wrecking ball press.

Toria's second collection 'Another Time in Space' was published in December 2022.

Toria’s words have also been featured in Not Too Tame’s Northern Souls show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, and recently in The Guardian for their feature on The Rise and Rise of the New Poets.  In September 2021, Toria featured on the front cover and centrefold of The Big Issue North. 

She was recently interviewed by Chis Hawkins on Radio 6 for National Poetry Day, and appeared on Radio 3's The Verb, with Ian McMillan and Radio 4's Front Row with Nick Ahad, as part of BBC's Contains Strong Language festival.  

Toria is currently writing Funerals for Birds, a radio drama about her experience of addiction.

“Toria Garbutt is Saturday Night Sunday Morning in one woman and in our lifetime, we are lucky to have her. Glorious, brutal, sharp, and tender. She has written an extraordinary love letter to us all.” Salena Godden

“Toria Garbutt is a beacon of a poet whose work draws us all together, closer to safety. Political, irreverent, warm, and necessary her performances are the stuff of legend. Superb.” Joelle Taylor

“Joan Jett and Patti Smith’s better-looking kid sister.” John Cooper Clarke

“Powerful, accessible, intelligent, and musical. Just about all the things I love in a poet.” Benjamin Zephaniah

“Toria has a unique skill of wrapping an audience up in her arms and making them feel that everything is gunna be alright.” Mike Garry

"A sage and a seer." Ian McMillan

This event took place on 21st January 2024 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

Happy Trails.