Lemn Sissay OBE

Official poet of the 2012 Olympics, the remarkable Lemn Sissay (OBE) is also a playwright, broadcaster, memoirist, performer and acclaimed speaker. We don’t have the space to list all his accomplishments here, but we can say that he’s been winner of the Pen Pinter Prize and a Points of Light Award; he’s Chancellor of the University of Manchester, and trustee of The Foundling Museum and The Christmas Dinners. The University of Huddersfield established (and now runs) the Lemn Sissay PhD Scholarship for Care Leavers and Lemn is both an Honorary Professor at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge. There’s much, much more! Lemn will give a rehearsed reading of his best-selling memoir My Name is Why (described by The Guardian as ‘a searing and unforgettable re-creation of the most brutal of beginnings’) and a Q&A session will follow this powerful story of neglect, determination and hope. 

Location: Waterside Theatre