photo:  Stewart Foley - courtesy Central Trains
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Ian is a judge for this year's Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award.

THE IAN McMILLAN ORCHESTRA Sharp Stories, cd out now. Listen up! 

The Orchestra was also featured on The South Bank Show (15.7.07)

CHELP AND CHUNTER How To Talk Tyke (Collins) Ian’s new book just out

Ian is the new Yorkshire Planetarium’s Poet in Space

IAN McMILLAN + HENWEN Happen, tours 20-29 Oct'07

Ian McMillan is poet-in-residence for Barnsley FC & The Academy of Urbanism.

‘The John Peel of poetry’ Alec Finlay
‘Jovial Poetic Troll’ Mark Radcliffe
'a force of nature' The Guardian

He’s the UK Trade & Investment Poet, Yorkshire TV’s Investigative Poet, C5 News Poet and Humberside Police’s Beat Poet. He is a Royal Literary Fund Associate Fellow at Northern College Barnsley, Rotherham College & South Yorkshire WEA and a honorary doctor of both Sheffield Hallam University & North Staffs Polytechnic. ‘You can call me Doctor Doctor…’ 

Ian hosts hit weekly show The Verb and Proms variation Adverb on BBC R3, dedicated to investigating spoken words around the globe.

He’s the 22nd Most Powerful Person in Radio. It says so here in The Radio Times. He is a regular roving contributor to BBC R4 Today Programme where he was Election Laureate.

Ian is a regular guest on Newsnight Review, The Mark Radcliffe Show, The Today Programme, You & Yours, The Culture Show, Never Mind The Full Stops… and Have I Got News For You? Other recent radio includes returning comedy series Street and Lane written with Dave Sheasby  - ‘just the right amount of playfulness to take the quotidian into the comic’ The Guardian, the Lakeland search for Kurt Schwitters in Steamboat Kurt and Nevada pursuit of cowboy verse in Poems On The Range.

He's just been appointed Poet in Residence for The Academy of Urbanism, a cutting edge group devoted to defining & driving our urban environments.

‘I’ve been going to business dinners for forty years and you’re the best speaker I’ve ever heard!’ CBI Yorkshire & Humberside

‘Easily the funniest and most entertaining awards presentation I have photographed in over 27 years of professional photography…’ Giles Rocholl, Former Picture Editor, Yorkshire Post. www.gilesrocholl.com 

Ian wrote three plays last year - In The Footsteps of Samuel Butler which Ian toured in  - see www.inthefootsteps.co.uk  - Sister Josephine Kicks The Habit based on songs by Jake Thackray www.sisterjosephine.com  and The Tale of Pretty Deadly for Chol Theatre www.choltheatre.co.uk 

enlargements - see photo gallery

Ian McMillan was recently nominated for the University of Oxford's Chair of Professor of Poetry. 

He has been a poet, broadcaster, commentator and programme maker for over 20 years. He's explored language & communication with schoolchildren, students, teachers, education policy makers, politicians and a host of public services & corporate businesses, in every conceivable location, from an archaeological dig to a Swiss mountain railway.

‘without doubt the funniest, quirkiest, sharpest presenter in the business’ Sue Arnold The Observer

Sony Awards on The Verb Writing Competition 'This proved that there is a great competition out there waiting to be created for every station and audience. It oozed creativity, with a new twist every edition, and inspired its listeners to display their prodigious talents. The presenter was a joy; warm and enthusiastic but still erudite. Yet another welcome element in the loosening up of Radio 3.

'it sounds nothing like what you might imagine a literary show on Radio 3 would sound. I don't mean McMillan's Yorkshire accent so much as his down-to-earth enthusiasm. Saturday night telly is rubbish anyway. Give yourself a treat and tune in.' Ken Garner Sunday Express

Ian's publications include: 

Perfect Catch (2000) / I Found This Shirt (1998) / Dad, the Donkey's on Fire (1994) /Selected Poems (1987)/ Just Like Watching Brazil (1999)

and for children: The Invisible Villain (2003) / The Very Best of Ian McMillan (2001) / Elephant Dreams (1998) with Paul Cookson & David Harmer

'the Shirley Bassey of performance poetry' T.E.S.

photo © Jim Varney           enlargements / copies  tel: 07071 310000

more pictures - see photo gallery

Current television & radio appearances include:

BBC R5 Fi Glover
BBC R5 Last Man In
BBC R4 The Twenty-Nine Worst Minutes of Raymond Hej (dir.Chris Wallis)
BBC R4 Home For Christmas (prod.Viv Beeby)
BBC R4 Cabin Doors to Manual (prod.Viv Beeby)
BBC R4 Days & Nights in Tootle Town (prod.Viv Beeby)
BBC R1 Morris Stars with Mark Radcliffe
BBC Scotland Fred MacAuley Show
BBC Scotland Brian Morton Arts Programme

C4 The Language of Football (Case TV, prod.Tom Stanier)
ITV To DIY For (YTV, prod.John Houldsworth)
YTV Mexico Mix (Garden Gate Productions, Dave Beresford)
YTV Humberside Police poetry residency (title tbc) (Garden Gate Productions, Dave Beresford)

Previously: Front Row, Poetry Please, Booked, The Way West, A Room With A Clue, Johnnie Walker Show, Sky Sports, Mark Radcliffe, The Antiques Treasure Trail, The Dominik Diamond Show, Mexico Mix…

Ian writes travel articles for The Mail On Sunday, occasional features for The Guardian G2 and regular columns for The Yorkshire Post and Barnsley Chronicle.