Poet, Performer & Writer
Ian was born in 1956 in the village near Barnsley where he still lives; he worked for years with The Circus of Poets performance poetry group and Versewagon, the World’s first mobile writing workshop. Later, he worked with Martyn Wiley as Yakety Yak, entertaining audiences all over the place.
Now Ian is a solo performer and writer: he’s worked in schools, theatres, arts centres, fields and front rooms. Ian has been poet in residence at Barnsley Football Club, Northern Spirit Trains and Humberside Police. He’s written comedy for radio and plays for the stage, and worked extensively for Radios 1,2,3,4 and Five Live as well as for Yorkshire Television and BBC2’s Newsnight Review.Ian currently presenting The Verb, Radio 3’s Cabaret of The Word, doing gigs all over the place on his own and with cartoonist Tony Husband and musician Luke Goss and writes weekly columns for The Yorkshire Post and The Barnsley Chronicle.