Henry Normal, Poet

It’s often said that you shouldn’t meet your heroes. So it was with some trepidation that I went down to Brighton one rainy day in January to meet Henry Normal. Henry’s name always used to pop up on the credits of some of my favourite TV shows. Paul Calf’s Video Diaries, Mrs Merton, The Royle Family, The Mighty Boosh … I could go on. But I needn’t have worried about meeting him. Henry’s a lovely man. And his creative endeavours extend even beyond those TV classics. He’s a poet, a writer and someone who thinks a lot about creativity, the world and our place in it. Our conversation begins with his early life in the slums of Nottingham. He tells me how Jack Benny and Dean Martin got him thinking about a life beyond the narrow streets of St Anne’s. He tells me what it was like to write with Steve Coogan and Caroline Aherne, and there are some great stories about the making of Mrs Merton and the Royle Family. And we talk about Henry’s son, Johnny and how he inspired Henry to return to poetry after a break of 20 years.