Henry Normal in conversation with... Paul Cookson

Manchester Library and Information Service

Join poet, writer, TV and film producer Henry Normal as he chats and shared poems with award-winning wordsmiths from Flapjack Press - and you can ask the questions too!

A series of free live stream events brought to you this summer by Flapjack Press, Manchester Libraries and New Poetry Society. What better way to spend your lunchtime?

HENRY NORMAL

Henry Normal is a poet, writer, TV and film producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Manchester Literature Festival) and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. Henry co-wrote and script edited The 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. Among his writing collaborations with Steve Coogan are the BAFTA-winning Paul and Pauline Calf Video Diaries, all of Steve’s live tours and the film The Parole Officer. Setting up Baby Cow Productions Ltd in 1999, Henry Executive Produced all and script edited many of the shows during his tenure as MD. Highlights of the Baby Cow output during this time include Oscar-nominated Philomena, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, The Mighty Boosh, Marion and Geoff, Red Dwarf, Uncle, Nighty Night and Alan Partridge. In 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television. Since retiring, Henry has written and performed seven BBC Radio 4 shows in his ‘occasional series’ A Normal…, combining comedy, poetry and stories about his life and family. His most recent poetry collection, The Distance Between Clouds, was published in 2021 and volume one of his collected poems will be published in November this year. Henry will be touring the UK throughout the forthcoming winter and spring.

“Shove up national treasures. We need to make room for Henry Normal.” Radio TimesPAUL COOKSONPaul Cookson has worked as a poet for over three decades, performing in schools and libraries, and at literature festivals and events across the world. As well as being Poet-in-Residence for The National Football Museum and Everton in the Community, he is Writer-in-Residence for Sing Together, which involves 125 Lancastrian schools with over 5000 children and 400 teachers. In 2020 he was commissioned by the BBC to write and perform a poem for the Women’s FA Cup Final. Paul has more than sixty titles to his name and over a million book sales – and with a quarter of a million copies sold alone, the anthology The Works has become a teacher’s ‘poetry Bible’. The third volume of his poem-a-day lockdown diaries, Pig’s Ear, Dog’s Dinner, was published this summer. A fourth and final collection, Nail on the Head, is due in November.

“Every day should have a Paul Cookson moment.” Simon Mayo, broadcaster &amp; author

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