An all-new poetry collection from the creator, writer and performer of the award-winning BBC Radio 4 series, A Normal...
Written between October 2018 and July 2019, these poems are concerned with the nature of change, identity, worth, and other abstract notions that get in the way of lunch.
Henry Normal is a writer, poet, TV and film producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Manchester Literature Festival) and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television.
Henry co-wrote and script edited the multi-award-winning Mrs Merton Show and the spin-off series Mrs Merton and Malcolm. He also co-created and co-wrote the first series of The Royle Family. With Steve Coogan, he co-wrote the BAFTA-winning Paul and Pauline Calf Video Diaries, Coogan's Run, Tony Ferrino, Doctor Terrible, all of Steve's live tours, and the film The Parole Officer. Setting up Baby Cow Productions in 1999, he Executive Produced all, and script edited many, of the shows of its seventeen-and-a-half-year output during his tenure as MD. Highlights of the Baby Cow output during this time include Oscar-nominated Philomena, Gavin and Stacey, I Believe in Miracles, Moone Boy, Uncle, Red Dwarf, The Mighty Boosh, Marion and Geoff, Nighty Night, Camping, Hunderby and Alan Partridge.
Since retiring in April 2016, Henry has written and performed six BBC Radio 4 shows, A Normal Family, A Normal Life, A Normal Love, A Normal Imagination, A Normal Nature and A Normal Universe, combining comedy, poetry and stories about bringing up his autistic son.
Henry regularly performs poetry at literature festivals around the UK and was recently given honorary degrees by both Nottingham University and Nottingham Trent University. He has also had a beer and a bus named after him in his home city.
"The Alan Bennett of poetry" - The Scotsman
"Witty and uncannily accurate with his observations" - The Stage
"Distinctly funny" - Time Out
"A gentle giant of stand-up poetry" - List
"Dovetails bittersweet poetry with a sublimely observant wit" - The Guardian
