5 minutes with... Hollie McNish
Internationally acclaimed poet and spoken word artist Hollie Poetry joins us for this year’s Brighton Festival as part of An Evening with Picador Poetry. You may know her from her Brighton Festival 2015 performance with Kate Tempest and George the Poet, or from one of her viral YouTube videos (now totaling almost 4.1 million views). Take 5 minutes to learn what makes Hollie McNish tick, ahead of her next fantastic show at the Brighton Festival in May.
I knew I wanted to be a performer when…
Honestly, I wanted to be a sports coach, then an economist, then a writer. But I love this job now! I knew I wanted to carry on doing this when I met the other poets I’d be working with.
My first public performance took place at…
Poetry Unplugged, Poetry Café, Covent Garden after a good pint of cider.
The first gig I went to was…
The Hollies with my dad. I’m named after them and he was determined I’d love them. The first one of my own choice was to see MN8.
The first album I ever bought was…
Errr, Boom Boom Boom by the Outhere Brothers. I was a little obsessed with the non-radio edit version! Other than that I’d record my own on tape from the radio. You know when you used to listen so carefully to click stop before the radio presenter spoke again.
The proudest moment of my career to date was when…
My daughter did my sound check at Abbey Road.
My favourite part of touring is…
Meeting other poets and people from the audience after the shows.
The best show I ever performed was…
Oooh, maybe The Moon Club, Cardiff. Lots of mums heckling and a burger place round the corner that served battered gherkins. Or Oran Mor on tour last year, cos it was in Glasgow and loads of my family were there.
If I wasn’t performing, I’d probably be…
Doing something admin-related with spreadsheets! Or writing other things. I’d still be writing poems, just keeping them under the bed instead.
People would be surprised to learn that...
I don’t like poetry.
Just joking.
Really, I do love it.
