John Hegley is well known as one
of the country's most innovative comic poets with six best selling
volumes of poetry to his name. As a performer, he has worked in
theatres and comedy clubs around the UK, selling out every year at the
Edinburgh Festival, at which he was nominated for a Perrier
Award in 1989. He has performed worldwide including at the
Montreal and New Zealand Comedy festivals. He recently
persuaded Neil Kinnock to dance on stage with a paper bag on his head
and a potato under his chin whilst Hegley sang a French poem about
pommes de terres.
John was born in 1953 in Newington
Green, and moved to Luton at an early age. After leaving school he
worked as a bus conductor and social security clerk, until he went to
Bradford University, eking out his grant by working as a nurse in a
local mental hospital.
He has worked with two children's
theatre groups, 'Interaction' and 'Soapbox', and began his highly
successful career at the notoriously tough comedy store in 1980.
His first notable media exposure was the
John Peel sessions (Radio One) with Popticians in 1983/4, with songs
about spectacles and the misery of human existence.
After publishing 'Glad to Wear Glasses'
in 1990 another six titles followed filled with verse, prose, drawings
drama and photographs of potatoes, and the CD/Cassette 'Saint and
Blurry'.
In 2000, John received an honorary Arts
Doctorate from Luton University and had his most notable live
engagement in a women's prison, Medellin, Columbia.
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