Smut Slam (I declare) is the new Cringe. Except you’re guaranteed everything you hear is going to be sex related. And it is as brilliant as you would expect.
Of course, what is said at Smut Slam stays at Smut Slam so I’m not going to divulge what confessions I actually heard but suffice to say there was plenty of sauciness to satisfy the naughtiest of people. It’s a true-life story slam – everyone gets 5 minutes to tell their story, with no notes, and they are judged on various aspects by an expert storytelling panel, with a winner and two runners up crowned at the very end.
To ensure more audience participation, there is also the Fuckbucket into which you are encouraged to submit questions or confessions anonymously. These are read out periodically throughout the evening and at the end of the night, one random person is chosen from said bucket (a Sainsbury’s bag on the night – as the hostess Cameryn said, the bucket was more a state of mind than an actual bucket) and wins a pretty kick-ass prize!
I went to the inaugural event and it was a sell out with people having to stand around the corner and not even get to see the stage (my Meetup probably guilty of taking up quite a portion of that). The quality of the stories and the way the stories were told was really high (you could tell a few people had rehearsed, or had at least told the story before to other audiences – one was, in fact, a poem) but that’s all to the good for the audience. However, there were some who spoke ‘from scratch’ as it were, and I think the crowd appreciated the authenticity of telling a story on the hoof.
I can’t see how this night won’t take off – it’s got sex and embarrassment and people lap that up - and I look forward to being a regular attendee.