Profile of Roger McGough on Famous Like Me

Roger McGough CBE (born November 9, 1937) is a well-known British performance poet.

He was born in north Liverpool, a city with which he is firmly associated in most people's minds. He was educated at the University of Hull at a time when the chief librarian was Philip Larkin. Returning to Merseyside in the early 1960s he met Mike McGear and John Gorman – both multi-talented entertainers. Together they formed The Scaffold, a comedy group, hitting number one in the British charts in 1968 with Lily the Pink. McGough co-wrote many of their songs. He continues to perform widely.

McGough was also responsible for much of the humorous dialogue in The Beatles' animated movie Yellow Submarine, although he did not receive an on-screen credit for it.

Along with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, with whom he published two best-selling volumes of verse, McGough won fame of a slightly more serious nature as one of the "Mersey Poets" of the 1960s and 70s.

In 1978 McGough appeared in All You Need Is Cash, a mockumentary detailing the career of a Beatles-like group called The Rutles. In McGough's scene his introduction takes so long that he is only asked one question ("Did you know the Rutles?," to which McGough cheerfully responds "Oh yes.") before the documentary is forced to move along to other events.

He now presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please and records voice-overs for commercials.

He was awarded the CBE in June 2004.

Books

• Summer with Monika (1967) (in record form, 1978)
• Out of Sequence (1972)
• Sporting Relations (1974)
• Defying Gravity (1993)
• The Way Things Are (1999)
• Everyday Eclipses (2002)

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