DR John Cooper Clarke at Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent

DR John Cooper Clarke performs at Victoria Hall in Stoke-on-Trent on 23 October 2026, 19:00. John Cooper Clarke is an English performance poet and comedian, also known as JCC and "The Bard of Salford". He was often referred to as a "punk poet" in the late 1970s.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s he released several albums and performed on stage with punk and post-punk bands, and he has continued to write and perform since. His first poetry anthology, Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt, was published in 1982. In 2013 the University of Salford presented him with an honorary doctorate.