Discombobulate! With Magi, Ali & Ian

Poets Magi Gibson & Ali Whitelock of The Magi & Ali Poetry Show join award-winning standup and novelist Ian Macpherson for a Sunday afternoon cocktail of poetry & literary comedy. 

Magi & Ali will read, entertain, exhilarate, devastate & delight with their own unique firebrand poetry. Their motto? FUCK MEDIOCRITY, WE WANT RISK.

Ian will perform The Everlasting Book Tour, a mind-bending show charting his career from stand up to literature & back to stand up. Though not necessarily in that order.

Ali's much-praised poetry collections include 'a brief letter to the sea about a couple of things' and 'the lactic acid in the calves of your despair.' She lives mostly in Australia with her French, chain-smoking husband and is currently back home in her native Scotland.

Magi's signature poetry collection, Wild Women of a Certain Age, was a sell-out on first publication & so popular it was republished on its 21st anniversary. Other collections include I Like Your Hat & Washing Hugh MacDiarmid's Socks. Magi was co-winner of the prestigious Wigtown International Poetry Competition in 2024.

Ian Macpherson won the first Time Out Award for Comedy & was an early presence on the London alternative cabaret/comedy scene. He wrote and performed many one man shows at the Fringe, then turned his hand mainly to writing novels. Comic novels, that is. His first, Deep Probings, was on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, read by himself. Many of the short stories that grew into The Book of Blaise were also featured on BBC Radio 4.

"One of the most creative and intelligent comedians I've ever seen." The Guardian on Ian Macpherson. 

"The funniest book I've ever read." Brian Boyd, The Irish Times.

"‘One of the wittiest, liveliest and most moving collections I’ve read in recent years. These poems are sassy, heartwrenching and unforgettable. They evoke the best of Bukowski and Ginsberg while being the unique product of a contemporary female mind, a mind that is hilarious, provocative and – remarkable. Every poem is an event.’ Kevin MacNeil on Ali Whitelock's first collection

"...an effusive and vibrant celebration of womanhood. Presented without apology or qualification, its poems are at times joyful, dignified, sorrowful, proud. To be read in the bath, or at the gym, or up a mountain; wherever it is that you are most yourself." Aoife Lyall on Washing Hugh MacDiarmid's Socks by Magi Gibson.