Ben Norris (born , Nottingham) is a British poet, playwright and actor.

Early life and education

Norris was born and grew up in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...

. He performed with the

British Youth Music Theatre British Youth Music Theatre (BYMT), formerly Youth Music Theatre UK, is a UK-based national performing arts organisation founded in December 2003. BYMT provides music theatre training to young people aged 11–21 and a stepping stone to drama ...

in ''Mort'' in 2007/2008 and ''According to Brian Haw'' in 2009. He studied for a BA in English and creative writing at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingha ...

and then trained at the

Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama , image_name = Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.jpg , image_size = , motto = , established = 1949 , type = Public , staff = , vice_chancellor = , students = 779 (2017/18) , undergrad ...

Career

In 2015 he performed a one-man show ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Family'' at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, based on his relationship with his father and his experience of hitchhiking around the UK to visit places where his father had lived. He subsequently toured this show in the UK and elsewhere including

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, Australia. He won the UK All-Stars Poetry 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 t ...

in 2013 and the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Poetry Slam 2017 and has published two pamphlets of poems, second being ''Some ending'' (2019). Since October 2018 he has played Ben Archer in the long-running

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

series ''

The Archers ''The Archers'' is a BBC radio drama on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural sett ...

''. He wrote the monologues for the show '' The Choir of Man'' and appeared as The Poet in its West End production at the

Arts Theatre The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. History It opened on 20 April 1927 as a members-only club for the performance of unlicensed plays, thus avoiding theatre censorship by the Lord Chamber ...

from November 2021, having taken the role of The Narrator in the original 2020 production. In 2016 he was

writer-in-residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

Theatr Clwyd Theatr Clwyd () is a regional arts centre and producing theatre from Mold, Flintshire, in North East Wales. It opened as Theatr Clwyd in 1976, but was known between 1998 and 2015 as Clwyd Theatr Cymru, before reverting to its original name. His ...

, and in 2018 was poet-in-residence at the Inspire Poetry Festival in Nottingham. From 2019 to 2021 he was a creative associate at Nottingham Playhouse. In 2019 he wrote, created and directed ''Track Record'', a spoken poem celebrating the accents of people living along the line of the

LNER LNER may refer to: * London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 * London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a typ ...

railway, fronted by Scottish DJ

Edith Bowman Edith Eleanor Smith (born January 1974) is a Scottish radio DJ and television presenter. She hosted '' Colin and Edith'', weekday afternoons, weekend breakfast, and ''The Radio 1 Review'' on BBC Radio 1 until 2014 and has presented a variety of ...

. In January 2022 he appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's '' Saturday Live'' and discussed his life and career. ''Norris appears from 44:15''

Selected publications

References

External links

* * Year of birth missing (living people) 1990s births Living people 21st-century British actors 21st-century British dramatists and playwrights 21st-century British poets Alumni of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama Alumni of the University of Birmingham Actors from Nottingham The Archers {{UK-actor-stub