Name: Carol Ann Duffy & John Sampson + support from Lucy Ayrton
Start: 2025-02-15T12:00:00+00:00
Location: Toll Gavel United Church and Centre

Carol Ann Duffy & John Sampson + support from Lucy Ayrton

Tickets £25 (first 20 early bird tickets £24)
Book here: https://stage4beverley.com/whats-on/carol-ann-duffy-award-winning-former-poet-laureate/
We're pleased to be welcoming Carol Ann Duffy - Britain's first female Poet Laureate - to Stage4Beverley festival.
Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow. She grew up in Stafford and then attended the University of Liverpool, where she studied Philosophy. She has written for both children and adults, and her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children's Verse, the Whitbread and Forward Prizes, as well as the Lannan Award and the E. M. Forster Prize in America. In 2012 she was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize. She was Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019.
Duffy’s recent collections include her Collected Poems (2015), The Bees (2011), winner of the Costa Poetry Award and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; and Rapture (2005), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize. Duffy has also written verses for children. Her several collections of children’s poetry include The Gift (2010), New and Collected Poems for Children (2009), and The Hat (2007).
In addition to her original poetry, Duffy has edited numerous anthologies, including To the Moon: An Anthology of Lunar Poems (2009) and Answering Back (2009), and has adapted eight classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales in Grimm Tales. Not intended for young children but for older children and young adults in drama and English classes, Grimm Tales includes adaptations of such stories as “Hansel and Gretel” and “The Golden Goose,” which are rewritten “with a poet’s vigor and economy, combining traditions of style with direct, colloquial dialogue,” according to Vida Conway in School Librarian.
Duffy is a professor of contemporary poetry and the creative director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. She lives in Manchester.
For her performance at the festival she will joined by long-time associate John Sampson, Edinburgh based musician, composer and actor. He has been well respected on the music scene for over 40 years and almost as long as an actor. He has toured throughout Europe and especially in Germany where his brand of musical comedy and cabaret is held in much affection. He is also an accomplished and highly regarded classical and jazz musician.
His association with Carol Ann Duffy spans over 20 years and their performances together are held in very high reward where their interplay of words and music has received rave reviews throughout the UK.
The Support Artist is Lucy Ayrton - A performance poet and novelist.