Elvis McGonagall (born Richard Smith; December 22, 1960) is a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

stand-up comedian Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage and delivers humorous and satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical acts. These performances are typically composed of rehear ...

who is especially notable for

poetry slam A poetry slam is a competitive art event in which poets perform spoken word, spoken word poetry before a live audience and a panel of judges. Poetry slams began in Chicago in the 1980s, with the first slam competition designed to move poetry rec ...

performances.

Biography

McGonagall was born in

Perth, Scotland Perth (; ) is a centrally located Cities of Scotland, Scottish city, on the banks of the River Tay. It is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and is the historic county town of Perthshire. It had a population of about ...

, and now lives in

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Sited below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the ...

South West England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of the nine official regions of England, regions of England in the United Kingdom. Additionally, it is one of four regions that altogether make up Southern England. South West England con ...

. His stage name combines a reference to the notoriously bad poet

William McGonagall William McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902) was a Scottish poet and public performer. He gained notoriety as an poetaster, extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work. He wrote ...

with 'Elvis' "because it’s just so wrong, the wrongest name I could think of to go with McGonagall".

Poetry

Slam performances

McGonagall first performed publicly at the UK Allcomers' Slam at the

Cheltenham Literature Festival ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' Cheltenham Literature Festival, a large-scale international festival of literature held every year in October in the English spa town of Cheltenham, and part of Cheltenham Festivals: also responsible for th ...

in 2003, finishing runner-up: he went on to win the slam the following year. His career saw significant progress in 2006, in which year McGonagall won the Spokefest UK Slam Championship and the World Slam Championship at the Rotterdam Poetry International Festival. McGonagall performs at poetry events nationwide, as well as compering at the Blue Suede Sporran Club.

Media performances

McGonagall has regularly appeared on BBC Radio 4's ''Saturday Live'', beginning with contributions to the premiere episode. He has appeared frequently on other BBC Radio 4 programmes, including ''Today'', ''

Last Word ''Last Word'' is a radio obituary series broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4. Each week, the lives of recently deceased famous people are summarised with narration and interviews with people who knew them. It is normally presented by Matthew Bannis ...

'' and '' Off the Page'' as well as starring in two series of his own sitcom ''Elvis Mcgonagall Takes A Look On The Bright Side'', Radio 4 Comedy of the Week stand-up special ''Full Tartan Jacket'' (2021) and a documentary ''My Name Is Elvis'' (2021). McGonagall has also appeared on various television programmes for a number of broadcasters. His credits include BBC One's ''

The One Show ''The One Show'' is a British television magazine and chat show programme. Broadcast live on BBC One weekdays at 7:00 pm, it features topical stories and studio guests. It is currently co-hosted by Alex Jones, Roman Kemp, Ronan Keating ...

'', BBC Two's ''

The Culture Show ''The Culture Show'' is a British magazine programme about books, art, film, architecture, music, visual fashion and the performing arts. The show was broadcast weekly on BBC Two between 2004 and 2015. Early history Launched in November 2004, th ...

'' and Channel 4's ''

Random Acts In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of definite pattern or predictability in information. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Ind ...

''.

Works

Audio *''Gie’ It Laldy! (2018) - Elvis McGonagall & His Resurrectors'' *''One Man And His Doggerel - Live!'' (2010) Written * ''Complete & Utter Cult!'' (2020) * ''Viva Loch Lomond!'' (2017) * ''Mostly Dreich'' (2012)

References

External links

Official website
1960 births Living people 21st-century Scottish poets Scottish male poets Scottish comedians Slam poets {{Scotland-poet-stub