Being Human ranges from the thoughtful to the mundane, from the hilarious to the tragic, and from the usual to the unusual. The poems are chosen from an eponymous anthology designed to explore all aspects of life and love. The poems were performed by Barra Collins, Elinor Middleton and Rochi Rampal, who delivered the pieces with clarity and excellence.  

Collins was eloquent and humorous, and gave a particularly poignant rendition of Upon Seeing an Ultrasound Photo of an Unborn Child by Thomas Harris, a poem full of longing and love towards a child from its father.  

Middleton was engaging, and had an excellent sense of timing. Two of the poems she performed stayed with me: the first was Privilege of Being by Robert Hass, which described the loneliness within a love affair as understood by the angels.  This performance was particularly haunting. The second was Golden Mothers Driving West by Paul Durcan, where Middleton displayed an impressive Irish accent, as the poem veered from funny to sad in the space of a few lines. Middleton's singing voice was very beautiful.

Rampal gave the poems she performed intensity and a certain sharpness when required. In the first act she read Romantic Moment by Tony Hoagland, which was full of both humour and wistful sadness in its imagining of how an animal would react to a second date.

One poem, Table by Edip Cansever, was repeated in the performance three times, perhaps as it encapsulates so well what it was to be human. It describes a man putting all his worries, loves, fears, keys and life onto a solid table. This poem is extremely powerful, especially so when performed by all three actors in a round. Indeed, all the poems which were performed by all of the actors together had considerable impact, and the timing in these pieces was exact.

The performance was full of emotional and intelligent poetry and I must confess I bought the book (Being Human, edited by Neil Astley). On looking through the anthology I realised what a difficult task it must have been to choose which poems would be included in the show, as it is full of beautiful words.  I'd recommend both the performance and the book.