Time Travelling Underpants is a collection of thirty poems performed by James Carter himself and comes complete with his own musical interludes.

In this collection James Carter talks about some amazing ideas that he had for inventions; teaches the listener how to play air guitar; explores the varieties of nature; visits outer space; writes a fantastic Christmas list and even provides some invaluable advice and a very important chant about those Time Travelling Underpants.

This CD contains 30 tracks, each a poem of between 30 seconds and two minutes in duration. The poems are read by the poet himself and he also provides a thoughtful, if somewhat condescending, introduction and conclusion. The introduction tells the listener to enjoy the poems, to laugh and chuckle but to make sure that this does not interrupt the listening experience of others. To close the collection he suggests the listener remembers to return the CD to the correct case and even turn the lights off as they leave the room. Whilst these are important messages they seem somewhat out of place.

One of the major drawbacks of this CD is the lack of a list of contents. Each poem is introduced by its title but for teachers wishing to play just a selection to their class, it would be necessary to listen to the whole CD and note down the titles before then deciding which tracks to use.

The poems are fun,  light-hearted and will doubtless elicit a few laughs from the listener but there is very little breathing space between each one, despite the guitar playing, and it is not easy to listen to the entire collection in one sitting. In small chunks  however this CD its great and is a useful resource on poetry and performance.

Overall this is a useful resource that could add a fun element to lessons. It is short, only 32 minutes (although the box claims 60 minutes!) and very accessible, particularly for KS2 classes. As there is very little opportunity to experience live poetry in schools I would recommend this CD as a good starting point despite some of the drawbacks – so take give it a go!

2008-03-14