Not What We Were Expecting

A debut collection of poetic snapshots, written between 1986 and 2024. “All the wit you’d expect and yearn for, but with a really surprising and delicious sensitivity.” Joanna Lumley “Alistair’s sense of fun we know, but the tenderness of his poetry adds new depths to our understanding of the man and his work.” Henry Normal “Funny, moving, and with a real depth of feeling.” Mary Killen, The Spectator “You don’t get to be a great impressionist without a feel for rhythm and rhyme and pitch.” Richard Stilgoe “Verbally adroit … skewering the passing moment, holding it up for examination, but with an undertow of great feeling. Masterly.” Simon Callow “Sometimes just funny, then melancholic, occasionally beautifully profound, often soulful, now and then amusingly imitative, always insightful and well observed.” Franny Moyle Born in Evesham in 1964 and a graduate of Leeds University, Alistair McGowan is best known for his impressions, winning a BAFTA for his BBC One series The Big Impression in 2003. He has also worked as an actor regularly on radio, occasionally on television, and nationwide on stage (even being nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance as The Dentist in Little Shop of Horrors). Alistair has written his own stand-up comedy through-out his 35-year career. He also wrote the stage play Timing (nominated for best new comedy in the WhatsOnStage Awards 2009) and three Radio 4 plays about composers Erik Satie and John Field, and the first performance of Pygmalion. He wrote over half the sketches in four series of The Big Impression and the book A Matter of Life and Death with his former comedy partner, Ronni Ancona. In 2015, Alistair threw himself into learning the piano from almost a standing start and, in 2017, released The Piano Album through Sony Classical – reaching number one in the classical charts. In 2023, he set up the Ludlow Piano Festival. This is his first poetry collection.