Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote more than 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by The New York Times to be the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry.
Alan Bennett is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his film The Madness of King George (1994). In 2005 he received the Society of London Theatre Special Award.
Vivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for acting as Master of Ceremonies on Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells.
Performance poetry is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. It covers a variety of styles and genres.
Roger Joseph McGough is an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children's author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please, as well as performing his own poetry. McGough was one of the leading members of the Liverpool poets, a group of young poets influenced by Beat poetry and the popular music and culture of 1960s Liverpool. He is an honorary fellow of Liverpool John Moores University, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and President of the Poetry Society.
Sir Andrew Motion is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work. In 2012, he became President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, taking over from Bill Bryson.
Brian Arthur John Smith is an English alternative comedian, presenter and writer.
Les Barker was an English poet. He wrote comedic poetry, parodies of popular songs, and also serious works.
Ivor Cutler was a Scottish poet, singer, musician, songwriter, artist and humorist. He became known for his regular performances on BBC radio, and in particular his numerous sessions recorded for John Peel's influential eponymous late-night radio programme, and later for Andy Kershaw's programme. He appeared in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film in 1967, and on Neil Innes' television programmes. Cutler also wrote books for children and adults, and was a teacher at A. S. Neill's Summerhill School and for 30 years in inner-city schools in London.
John Baine, better known by his stage name Attila the Stockbroker, is an English punk poet, multi instrumentalist musician and songwriter. He performs solo and as the leader of the band Barnstormer 1649, who combine early music and punk. He has performed over 3,800 concerts, published eight books of poems, an autobiography and in 2021 his Collected Works spanning 40 years. He has released over forty recordings.
Boothby Graffoe is an English comedian, singer, songwriter and playwright. He is particularly known for his surreal sense of humour and work with Canadian band Barenaked Ladies.
Henry Normal is an English writer, poet, film and TV producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival, and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. In June 2017, he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television. He set up Baby Cow Productions with Steve Coogan in 1999, and was its managing director until his retirement in 2016.
Kit Wright is an English writer who is the author of more than twenty-five books, for both adults and children, and the winner of awards including an Arts Council Writers' Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize and the Heinemann Award. After a scholarship to Oxford University, he worked as a lecturer at Brock University, St Catherine's, in Canada, then returned to England and a position in the Poetry Society. He is currently a full-time writer.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
John Agard FRSL is a Guyanese playwright, poet and children's writer, now living in Britain. In 2012, he was selected for the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was awarded BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2021.
Saint and Blurry is an album by John Hegley released in 1993 by Rykodisc.
Sean O'Brien FRSL is a British poet, critic and playwright. Prizes he has won include the Eric Gregory Award (1979), the Somerset Maugham Award (1984), the Cholmondeley Award (1988), the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2007). He is one of only four poets to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same collection of poems.
Nathan Penlington, is a writer, poet, live literature producer and magician. His work has appeared on stage, in print and on the radio.
Linda Leatherbarrow is a prize-winning Scottish writer and illustrator. She is best known for her short story collection, Essential Kit, and her illustrations for John Hegley's comic poems in Visions of the Bone Idol. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in the British Council's New Writing 8, the London Magazine, Ambit and many other anthologies and literary journals. She is a regular contributor to the literary review, Slightly Foxed, and has interviewed many writers, including Rose Tremain, Kate Mosse, and Susan Hill, for Newbooks magazine. In 2005 she was given an Arts Council Award.
Warning: May Contain Nuts was a comedy project organised by BBC Radio Berkshire and charity Company Paradiso involving performance and creative writing related to mental illness that was run in the United Kingdom during 2010. The project was intended to raise awareness of mental health issues and included creative workshops aimed at helping mental health service users in the counties of Sussex and Berkshire to express themselves. The project was launched on 11 May 2010 in Reading with performances from poet John Hegley and comedian Mackenzie Taylor. As part of the project Radio Berkshire broadcast material developed in the workshops over a week at the end of May. Further shows took place as part of the project including a cabaret stand-up comedy night at the Brighton Comedy Festival in October 2010. Hegley and Taylor performed at this show along with mental health service users including Northern Irish blogger Seaneen Molloy.
