Image © Steve Ullathorn
Location: London
John Dowie
Influential writer and humorist John Dowie has been acclaimed by some as Britain’s first alternative comedian and was an unlikely early signing to Factory Records. Born in Birmingham in 1950, he rivalled John Cooper Clarke as a literate punk poet. Feted by Tony Wilson of Factory as a new wave Lenny Bruce, Dowie went on to record with Martin Hannett and Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, before moving on to stage and television work, and finally retiring from stand-up in 1991. He is the author of “The Freewheeling John Dowie” and “Before I Go.”
