Poet and comedian Joy France has won the Commonword Superheroes of Slam title in Manchester to complete a remarkable week of triumphs. On Saturday she had appeared at Manchester’s Women in Comedy festival in her first one-woman show. A few days before that she had won the Wirral Ode poetry competition as well. Joy has been a regular at many Write Out Loud events over the last few years. Runner-up at Commonword last night, which was hosted by Julian Daniel, was Dave Viney, who won the Wigan heat of Superheroes of Slam, which was staged by Write Out Loud at the Tudor House hotel in August. 

Background: Rising poetry star breaks out into comedy