The Market Theatre was packed out for UA Fanthorpe and still people were queuing in the rain outside for a ticket. Who says poetry isn't popular?

Her popularity is down in part to her accessibility. She is first of all a poet of ideas, not a possessed or incantatory bard, and she allows an audience easy access into her thought patterns, which often view life at a slant.

She has a gentle, English sense of humour, such as a favourite aunt might possess, and this is never threatening; though it can be a surprise.

In her poem on George and the Dragon, Not my best side, the maiden is not certain that she wants to be rescued. The knight is concealed in his armour, but with the dragon, "you could see all of his equipment at a glance".

On the stage, as in life, Fanthorpe forms a touching double act with Dr R V Bailey. This allows two voices to be heard in the same poem. It can be very effective and operatic, as in her poem on the lost rivers of London, where Dr Bailey suddenly chants out the names of the vanished water courses which have been "buried alive in earth/forgotten like the dead". But of course, the rivers "being of our world, they will return/plant effluent on our faces".

Fanthorpe is of our world, and plants rich food for thought. She is not a mystic, but displays instead an almost religious interest in people. She has been a hospital cleric, and has a credential rare among the younger lions, that of an ordinary working life before fame. I feel that people will always warm to her work, because there is real truth in it.

Gary Bills-Geddes