We’re thrilled to be making our Brighton premiere at KOMEDIA on 7th May at 8pm (doors 7.30pm). After many sell-out shows across London, our celebrated poetry night comes to the south coast for the very first time.

Headlining this exciting event will be the award-winning poet Sanah Ahsan (winner of the Outspoken Poetry Performance Prize), with features from Brighton's razor-sharp wordsmith and free-style rapper, Gramski, plus former Canterbury Laurette, Dan Simpson.

This eclectic night also boasts our renowned open mic, which offers the opportunity to poets of all backgrounds and stages to take to the mic. You can sign-up for this on the night, from 7.30pm.

Hosted by poets Ella Dorman-Gajic and Iftikhar Latif, you don’t want to miss OFF THE CHEST at the award-winning Komedia, one of Brighton’s most acclaimed live performance venues, right in the heart of Brighton’s renowned North Laines, during the world-renowned Brighton Fringe Festival

"An exhilarating declaration of love and an invocation to bare the soul.” - The Guardian  on Sanah Ahsan

Join us for another one of our renowned free online workshops aimed at helping poets of all backgrounds and stages develop their skills under the guidance of a professional poet ✨✨

In this special one-off workshop, Off The Chest hosts Ella Dorman-Gajic and Iftikhar Latif will be delving into writing poems for performance, and exploring performance styles and techniques. At the end of this workshop, participants will get the chance to share their work with the rest of the group if they choose.

This free workshop is taking place on 28th April, 11am. Spaces are given on a first come first serve basis; with all our workshops this year filling up at record speed, book now to avoid missing out!

Each of our workshops will be facilitated by a different poet so that you receive a variety of different insights and exercises into how to take your poetry to the next level. This workshop will be over Zoom. We welcome poets and writers of all skill levels. So whether you've never written a poem before or are a seasoned artist, there will be something in this for everyone. Best of all, it's completely *FREE*

➡️Get your ticket booked to join us for some fun. Friendly and inclusive vibes, as ever.

After two smash-hit events at Omnibus Theatre, one of South London’s most acclaimed live performance venues, we will make our anticipated return on 22nd February, for our first event of 2024! Tickets are now on sale.

This event includes all the hallmarks of an Off The Chest night: our acclaimed open mic, two renowned feature poets, and hosts bringing the most: Ella Dorman-Gajic and Iftikhar Latif.

Their open mic segment offers the opportunity to poets of all backgrounds, stages and ages to take to the stage. You will be able to sign up for the open mic on the night, with a limited number of spots up for grabs. Names will be pulled out of a hat.

The names of our two acclaimed poets will be announced very soon, so keep an eye on this webpage for more!

Funded by Arts Council England, Off The Chest was founded in 2019, and has since produced multiple poetry nights to sell-out audiences, across London and further afield. Don’t miss our third return to Omnibus Theatre. 

Join us on 26th November for our FREE Zoom Poetry event, hosted in celebration of UK Disability History Month.

Our features for this event include the award-winning poet Rebecca Ferrier plus Simon J Keenan. You are welcome to sign up for our renowned open mic, which will give you the chance to share your poetry far and wide, through the power of Zoom. This event proudly champions disabled poets.

How to perform on the open mic: We have limited spaces available and will work on a first come/first serve basis that prioritises poets with disabilities. Please sign up by booking an open mic slot ticket on the ticket page. Performing poets will have 3-4 mins max.

Rebecca Ferrier was the Bridge Award winner for an Emerging Writer in 2020, shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize in 2023 and runner-up for the inaugural Disabled Poets Prize. Her poetry has been published by Poetry Ireland Review, Canthius and Anthropocene, while her prose can be found with Extra Teeth and New Gothic Review. She was a UNESCO City of Literature virtual writer-in-residence at the Melbourne Writers Festival in 2021, hosted by Emerging Writers Festival. Rebecca was also part of the first All Stories development cohort and secured funding from Creative Scotland for her upcoming novel about sickness, the sea and difficult women. She is represented by Alex Cochran at C&W (part of The Curtis Brown Group).

We're proud to be celebrating Disability History Month with this event, which runs 16 Nov - 16 Dec. Find out more about the month via their website: https://ukdhm.org/

Keep a close watch or listen to this webpage for more information on this event, coming very soon...

Join us for a special birthday edition of Off The Chest! Celebrating four years of creating spaces of poetry, this month we are at Deptford Lounge for a poetry event doubling up as a birthday party! The run down of the event goes like this…

6 PM: Preceding our open mic event, there will be a special workshop, run by Cia Mangat of Zindabad. This will be a relaxed workshop open to everyone, whether you're a seasoned poet, a beginner to writing or somewhere in between. We'll be creating centos, or patchwork poems, by cutting up and collaging lines of existing poems along with lines we've written together. We recommend booking for this in advanced, as spaces are limited.

7.30 PM: Our open mic event kicks off, including feature poets from four other poetry nights in London: Everything Poetry, Word Soul, Zindabad and Process Productions. Plus, don’t miss the opportunity to perform your own poetry as part of our renowned open mic.

Everyone’s invited! This event is pay what you decide, so don’t let ticket prices get in the way of celebrating poetry with us.

To book your Pay-What-You Decide ticket to the workshop and the main event by clicking HERE

Join us for another one of our renowned free online workshops aimed at helping poets of all backgrounds and stages develop their skills under the guidance of a professional poet .

We are excited to announce that this workshop will be with the multi-award-nominated poet Alice Frecknall.

Alice Frecknall is a poet, short fiction writer, and fine artist. Her debut poetry collection, Somewhere Something is Burning, is published by Out-Spoken Press (2021). Her writing has been widely anthologised, including in The London Magazine, The Stinging Fly, berlin lit, And Other Poems, bath magg, fourteen poems, and Butcher’s Dog, and was most recently shortlisted for the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry 2023 and The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2023. Alice has an MA in Creative Writing and is a Roundhouse Poetry Collective alumna. Read more about her by viewing her website.

With our last Zoom workshop totally booking out, we recommend booking for this one in advance to avoid disappointment.

BOOK NOW.