HENRY NORMAL | Writer / Poet / Film Producer
Born in St Anne’s, Nottingham in 1956. Now lives in Brighton with his wife, the screenwriter Angela Pell, and their son, Johnny. He is a writer, poet and TV and Film producer and founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Literature festival) and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival.
In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to Television.
He co-wrote and script edited every episode of 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 and all three 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 of its seventeen and a half year output during his tenure as MD.
Highlights of the Baby Cow output during this time include
Philomena, I Believe in Miracles, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, Uncle, Marion and Geoff, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf, Hunderby, Camping and Alan Partridge,
Since retiring in April 2016 Henry has written and performed seven BBC Radio 4 shows “a normal family’, ‘a normal life’, ‘a normal love’, ‘a normal creativity’, ‘a normal nature’, a normal universe and ‘a normal communication’ combining comedy, poetry and stories about bringing up his autistic son. These shows are often now available on BBC sounds.
He was recently given a honorary doctorate of letters by Nottingham Trent University, another by Nottingham University, and has had a beer and a bus named after him in Nottingham !
Henry performs poetry at Literature Festivals around the UK and has 10 recent poetry collections out from Flapjack Press including a hardback selected works ‘The Escape Plan’. Henry also has a memoir ‘A Normal Family’ published by Two Roads Press telling the story of his family which is co-written with his wife, Angela Pell.
Books
Swallowing the Entire Ocean
Written between August 2017 and January 2019, these poems are concerned with the search for meaning, identity and truth, and other foolhardy adventures.
“Dovetails bittersweet poetry with a sublimely observant wit” – The Guardian
Cover art by Johnny Carroll-Pell.
Strikingly Invisible
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.
The Beauty Within Shadow
An all-new collection written between August 2019 and June 2020.
These poems are concerned with the balancing of darkness and light in our everyday lives, the search for an understanding of pain and sorrow, and the processing of other thoughts we’d usually avoid by filling our days with mindless distractions.
“Painfully funny … tender and touching.” – Judy Gordon, Write Out Loud
The Distance Between Clouds
The Distance Between Clouds is all-new collection written between June 2020 and March 2021.
“Finally, a collection of poetry about joy, positivity and optimism, before I die unloved and forgotten.” – Henry Normal.
Cover art by Johnny Carroll-Pell.
Henry Normal The Escape Plan
The Escape Plan includes all of the poems from Henry Normal’s acclaimed BBC Radio 4 shows, together with the most popular poems from each of his previous collections.
“Shove up National Treasures. We need to make room for Henry Normal.” – Radio Times
Cover art by Johnny Carroll-Pell.
Art By Johnny (book)
Johnny Carroll-Pell is a young artist who is diagnosed as severely autistic.
Though he finds verbal communication challenging, Johnny finds expression through painting. This book contains 100 pictures of his work.
A NORMAL FAMILY
Johnny is eighteen. He likes music, art and going to the beach. He is also autistic – in his case that means he will never get a job, never have a girlfriend, never leave home. And over the last eighteen years this is what his father, TV producer and comedy writer Henry Normal has been trying to come to terms with.
The Department Of Lost Wishes
The Department of Lost Wishes contains over a hundred poems personally selected by the author from his early works.
“Green are the English pastures
Green – the jealousy of lovers
Green are the fruit pastels
I always offer to others”
“Distinctly funny” – Time Out
This Phantom Breath
This Phantom Breath was written between August 2016 and August 2017. The poems in this collection are concerned with love, death, truth and other inconvenient distractions.
“Witty and uncannily accurate with his observations” – The Stage
TRAVELLING SECOND CLASS THROUGH HOPE
Travelling Second Class Through Hope contains seventy poems personally selected by the author from his early works.
Includes a Foreword by Lemn Sissay MBE.
Guardian Review 13 May 2017:
The Saturday Poem
“The nerd triumphant” –
Manchester Evening News
“A gentle giant of stand-up poetry” – List
“The enfant terrible of alternative poetry” – Leeds Other Paper
STARING DIRECTLY AT THE ECLIPSE
Henry Normal’s first poetry book in over twenty years, combining both new and selected poems from his previous performance work. This collection encompasses the subjects of love, death, loneliness, loss, human frailty and other classic conversation stoppers.
First published by Five Leaves in 2016, Staring Directly at the Eclipse has been revised and reissued by Flapjack Press in 2018.
“Succinct, heartrending and peppered with gentle punchlines” – The Guardian
RAINING UPWARDS
Raining Upwards is Henry Normal’s first all new poetry collection in over twenty years. These poems explore relationships with science, nature, humanity and other vital matters we are usually too busy to think about.
Radio
A Normal Communication
The seventh instalment in this acclaimed, occasional series in which acclaimed, occasional writer Henry Normal tackles those subjects so big only radio can possibly contain them. So far Henry has covered ‘Family’, ‘Life’, ‘Love’, ‘Imagination’, ‘Nature’ and ‘The Universe’; in this new episode he explores ‘Communication’, recorded with a virtual audience.
Through poetry, stories, jokes and quotes Henry will be looking at the way ‘how’ we communicate colours ‘what’ we communicate and exploring ‘why’ we communicate in the first place.
Written and performed by Henry Normal
Production Coordinator – Beverly Tagg
Produced by Carl Cooper
A Normal Nature
The fifth instalment in this acclaimed, occasional series in which acclaimed, occasional writer Henry Normal uses poetry, stories and comedy to tackle those subjects so big only radio can possibly contain them. In this new episode Henry looks our relationship with nature in an exploration of unsung nature from the point of view of a busy urban human.
Written and performed by Henry Normal
Production Coordinator – Beverly Tagg
Produced by Carl Cooper
BBC Radio 4 A Normal Love
Part three in an occasional series in which the occasional writer Henry Normal uses poetry, storytelling and comedy to tackle those subjects so big only radio can possibly contain them.
Last year Henry brought us his acclaimed show – ‘A Normal Life’, which was awarded a Silver ARIA for Best Comedy / Entertainment production at the 2017 Radio Academy Awards.
This time Henry returns with his new show for Valentine’s Day – ‘A Normal Love’, exploring love, romance and other unreasonable expectations.
Written and performed by – Henry Normal
Producer – Carl Cooper
This is a BBC Studios Production.
