Poet & comedian John Hegley is happy to talk - and write - about anything and everything. What’s On tries to keep him on-topic to discuss his appearance at Coventry’s upcoming Skylines festival of poetry & the spoken word...

In the publicity blurb for his upcoming appearance at the Skylines poetry festival in Coventry, John Hegley claims his latest show is ‘designed in the main for adults, but may be of interest to the odd nine-year-old’.
He sniggered when I asked him to clarify his use of the word ‘odd’.

“Well, I was certainly an odd nine-year-old - I think I was an odder 14-year-old, perhaps an even odder 68-year-old! When I wrote that line, the second meaning only came to me afterwards, but I thought that was alright as well.”

Still performing as he approaches his eighth decade, the poet, comedian, singer, songwriter - and let’s not forget ‘glasses-wearer’ - enjoys national-treasure status in some quarters, but remains a playful raconteur with a childlike wonder that translates - and transmits - to a younger audience. He started writing poems for children years ago, but claims it was completely unplanned. 

“I was thinking about this the other day because I was running a workshop for people who wanted to write for children and [talking about] my first book, Glad To Wear Glasses. I look at it now and can see there were some poems that you’d probably put in a kids’ book, but I didn’t think it at the time.

“There’s obviously some subjects that you won’t broach with youngsters, but there are others that are for everybody really.

“It surprises me when the odd [there we go again] nine-year-old comes to my show and the bits they’ve liked the best aren’t what I expected or thought was more oriented for kids. So I don’t really know the answer, and I hope I don’t know the answer of ‘what is the stuff for kids?’ - it’s just nice when people take something up and it becomes theirs: ‘We like this!’”

People have been ‘liking this’ - John’s work - for well over 40 years. He first performed his own material in 1978, and has gone on to appear on TV and radio - including in his own show on BBC Radio Four - produced 12 books (“and one mug”), conducted workshops and toured constantly, clocking up a bewildering 31 runs at the Edinburgh Festival along the way.

There was much to discuss then, but somewhat unnervingly - because this never happens - the ever-inquisitive people-person initially seemed more interested in talking about me, my background, education, why economies of scale should be explained to Joe Public and much more. 

Clambering out of the rabbit hole of our conversation (the rabbit no doubt carrying a pocket watch and tutting), I deviously steered John back to the topic of poetry via a brief exchange about football, offering my condolences after his beloved Luton Town failed to join England’s elite division via the playoffs.

My suggestion that ‘Who really wants to be in the Premier League?’ would make a good title for a poem earned a knowing laugh (and possibly a note scribbled for future reference). He then acclaimed what a great season it’d been and reeled off a poem for good measure:  

“Five whole goals to Luton Town
And Middlesbrough not one
But though their team was  five-nil down
Their fans were up for fun
And when their consolation came
Before the whistle blew
They echoed Luton’s ‘we want six’
With a modest ‘we want two’”

That put paid to my query about whether football was a good subject for poetry, but it turns out pretty much everything is - particularly potatoes and other plants and vegetables - as long as there’s a human connection. 

He immediately started quoting from another poem (‘Poem de terre’): ”I'm not a normal person, whatever that may be, there is something very very vegetable about me…” before offering an explanation: “It’s potatoes, and how they relate to people. It’s not just about the potato, it’s about being something other than other folk - and the blight, it’s about more than potato blight, it’s about the blights that we might have ourselves. So the subjects are coat hangers, but we value the coat hanger as well, [whether it’s] glasses, dogs, spuds, biscuits or anything else.”

It’s clear that varying the subject matter is one of the ways John keeps himself entertained, and his live act now embraces song, dance and even drawing (of dromedaries, among other animals), which I suggested was sailing a little close to the wind content-wise as the headline act at a poetry festival.

“I suppose I am!” he chuckled, admitting that there are times when he enjoys concentrating purely on the actual poems as opposed to his overall performance.

“I did a show last night in Bristol, and at the end I picked up a wodge of pages and realised I hadn’t read all of the poems out. So I just read a batch of poems, and it was really lovely. Usually I try to dress the pieces with a song, or some comedy or music, so it was good to just give the words a chance!”

John’s performance in Coventry will be the finale of the inaugural Skylines festival, which is the brainchild of Writing West Midlands and Nine Arches Press. As well as highlights from his back-catalogue, the show is due to feature several newly composed pieces, including work based on the letters and leisure activities of John Keats, one of his favourite poets. 

He has also written a new limerick especially for the event, which he read to me - but I don’t want to spoil it for attendees by divulging here. That being said, I can reveal it has a lovely ending (“that started out as the first line, but I realised it was good, so thought I better put it last”) as well as a modest contribution from yours truly in terms of some minor geographical clarification in the opening line. I’ll say no more, but the poet was clearly grateful, though perhaps not enough to warrant offering a co-writer’s credit.

“Thanks for that - I looked in my Equity diary, and on the train map it looks like Coventry is south east of Birmingham, but I can’t tell how many miles it is. This is the thing; you pick up little bits of stuff, bits of knowledge everywhere.”

And he scribbled it down. John Hegley in a nutshell.

John Hegley appears at the Belgrade Theatre on 17 July as part of the Skylines festival, which runs from 15 to 17 July at various venues in Coventry... For more information, visit skylinescoventry.co.uk

Interview by Steve Adams