New & Selected Potatoes

John Hegley performs live in venues and festivals all over Britain, from the Edinburgh Fringe to the Glastonbury main stage. He appears on television and radio and his poems have been featured regularly in the Guardian. Born in Newington Green, North London, he was educated in Luton, Bristol and Bradford University, and lives very near to his birthplace. His first public performance monies came from busking his songs, initially outside a shoeshop in Hull, in the late 70s. He performed on the streets of London in the early 80s, fronting the Popticians, with whom he also recorded two sessions for John Peel, and has since been a frequent performer of his words, sung and spoken, on both local and national radio. He has produced twelve books of poetry and prose pieces, two CDs and one mug, but his largest source of income is from stages on his native island. An Edinburgh Festival regular, he is noted for his exploration of such diverse topics as dog hair, potatoes, handkerchieves and the misery of human existence.He is an occasional DJ, dancer and workshop leader, using drawing, poetry and gesture. He has been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Arts from what is now the University of Bedfordshire, and once performed in a women's prison in Colombia - but has not been asked back. His most recent collection before New & Selected Potatoes was Peace, Love & Potatoes (Serpent's Tail, 2012).

'Fabulously funny' - Time Out. 'Scandalously talented' - Sunday Times. 'John Hegley is to potatoes what Wordsworth has been to daffodils' - Observer. 'A mainstay of the alternative comedy scene - an incurable entertainer' - Guardian. 'Consistently plain-speaking yet metaphysical, mordant yet mellifluous, experimental yet traditional - he speaks many a true word in jest - one of our most entertaining and communicative poets' - Michael Horovitz, Telegraph.