Ian McMillan Douglas Kurn

Fee Band


Affectionately known as ‘the Bard of Barnsley’, Ian turns performance poetry into pure entertainment. Now living down south, he turns his hand to people and places in the news (and assembled guests) - with what one critic describes as the verbal gymnastics of Spike Milligan and the timing of Eric Morecombe.


Biography

Born in Barnsley, Ian has been a drummer, a builder, a tennis-ball factory worker and the poet in residence at Humberside Police.

Ian wrote constantly as a child without an idea of how to go about actually becoming a writer. After joining a band he realised how much he also loved performing and he soon formed Barnsley’s first folk/poetry duo. A grant from Yorkshire Arts eventually came to the rescue and he began work with Circus of Poets and Versewagon, the world’s first mobile writing workshop.

Described as the “Shirley Bassey of performance poetry” by the Times Educational Supplement, Ian has columns in the Yorkshire Post and the Barnsley Chronicle and can be heard regularly on Newsnight Review and Radio 4.

© Copyright 2024 JLA. All rights reserved.

Contact

We’re on hand to help you find the perfect speaker, presenter or performer for your events. Call or email our London office and use our agents' experience to expertly match you with the right person for your programme!


From time to time we send out emails announcing new speakers and free tickets to our showcase events including Speakers Breakfasts and the JLA Real Variety Show. Please tick the box below if you would like to receive these emails.

Don't miss anything!

We will never share the data you submit here with a third party. Information is stored in a database in order to service your enquiry, but is deleted once it is no longer required. You may request to have this data removed at any time.

JLA Presents


Event - 30/04/2024 - 9:00 am

Speakers Breakfast

Understanding AI Now

Speakers
Priya Lakhani, Anne-Marie Imafidon, and Neil Lawrence

Please join us in our JLab studio near Oxford Circus at 08:30am on Tuesday 30th April for our next speaker’s breakfast event. Following our sell-out event for IWD back in February, we will be joined by three fantastic speakers for an exploration of the uses, myths and concerns surrounding AI.

Location

JLA, 14 Berners Street, London

WATCH

Event - 06/02/2024 - 9:00 am

Speakers Breakfast

Looking Ahead to International Women’s Day

Speakers
Samira Ahmed, Eniola Aluko, Julia Gillard, and Alex Mahon

We were joined by four fantastic speakers to look ahead at International Women’s Day. With the theme of this year’s event being #InspireInclusion, we were lucky enough to hear from four women who have each blazed a trail in their respective fields: CEO of Channel 4, Alex Mahon; the former Australian Prime Minister and Chair of Kings’ Global Institute of Women’s Leadership, Julia Gillard; one of the leading voices in football, Eniola Aluko MBE; and broadcaster and journalist, Samira Ahmed.

Location

Bishopsgate Institute, London

WATCH