Henry Normal

Henry has several poetry collections published by Flapjack Press: Travelling Second Class Through Hope (2017), Raining Upwards (2017), Staring Directly at the Eclipse (2018 – originally published by Five Leaves in 2016), This Phantom Breath (2018), The Department of Lost Wishes (2018), Swallowing the Entire Ocean (2019), Strikingly Invisible (2019) and The Escape Plan (2020).

Since retiring in April 2016, Normal has written and performed six BBC Radio 4 shows, A Normal Family, A Normal Life, A Normal Love, A Normal Imagination, A Normal Nature and A Normal Universe, combining comedy, poetry and stories about bringing up his autistic son, Johnny. In 2018, Two Roads published A Normal Family: Everyday adventures with our autistic son, which Henry co-wrote with his wife, screenwriter Angela Pell.

Setting up Baby Cow Productions 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 Oscar-nominated Philomena, Gavin and Stacey, I Believe in Miracles, Moone Boy, Uncle, Red Dwarf, The Mighty Boosh, Marion and Geoff, Nighty Night, Camping, Hunderby and Alan Partridge.

In 1991 he starred in Channel 4's late night series, Packet of Three, which blended stand-up comedy with a peculiarly solipsistic sitcom about the staff working at a variety theatre called the Crumpsall Palladium. As the beleaguered, depressed theatre owner, Normal was assisted by stage manager Frank Skinner and kiosk attendant Jenny Eclair.

Early in his career Normal toured with the band Pulp. With Mark Atwood he helped form the Live Poets Society, whose motto was "poetry so good you can actually understand it". Established in Manchester, they performed in pubs and clubs throughout the north of England. Normal had an eccentric delivery style, and at a 1987 poetry convention in Corby performed with a paper bag over his head. Also in the 1980s, Henry Normal had short prose pieces published in small press magazines such as Peace & Freedom. He released a live album, Ostrich Man, in 1987.

Henry Normal (real name Peter James Carroll, born 15 August 1956) 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. In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television. He was managing director of Baby Cow Productions, which he set up with Steve Coogan.