Manchester is a City of Literature

Word Central Open Mic Poetry and Spoken Word.

Live Stream Thursday 25th June, 8pm.

Hosted by Tony Curry with special guest poet Henry Normal.

You can book your open mic slot from noon on 18th June via [email protected]. N.B. Open Mic slots are 3 minutes maximum.

Performance slots are allocated on a ‘first come first served’ basis and if none are left you will be offered a space on the reserve list.

Our guest poet 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. He co-wrote and script edited the multi-award-winning Mrs Merton Show and co-created and co-wrote the first series of The Royle Family. Collaborations with Steve Coogan include co-writing the BAFTA-winning Paul and Pauline Calf Video Diaries, Coogan’s Run, all of Steve’s live tours and the film The Parole Officer.

In 1999, Henry founded Baby Cow Productions and Executive Produced all and script edited many of their shows. Highlights of their output during his time as MD include the Oscar-nominated Philomena, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, The Mighty Boosh, Marion and Geoff, Red Dwarf, Uncle, Nighty Night and Alan Partridge. In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television.

Since retiring, Henry has written and performed six acclaimed BBC Radio 4 shows, A Normal…, combining comedy, poetry and stories about bringing up his autistic son.

He has eight poetry collections published by Flapjack Press. The most recent, The Escape Plan, was published in March.