Ian Cognito

Born: 1958-11-21

Ian Cognito (real name Paul John Barbieri) was a British alternative comedian of Italian Irish descent. He won the Time Out Award for Stand-up Comedy in 1999 but famously never appeared on TV, nor did he ever want to. Cognito had an aggressive stage persona and a reputation as Britain’s "most banned" comic, again another reason for never appearing on TV. Nevertheless, he was widely rated as a masterful performer with an innate grasp of stagecraft, inviting comparisons to iconoclasts like Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, and Jerry Sadowitz. He died on stage of a heart attack on 11 April 2019 at the Lone Wolf comedy club in Bicester, aged just 60.


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Filth!

as Ian Cognito (Paul Barbieri)
Released: 1994-04-24

In the late Eighties, there had been a series of comedy concerts (modelled on the Amnesty...

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Ian Cognito: A Life and A Death On Stage

as Self (archive)
Released: 2022-07-21

Rising to fame amid the 1980s alternative comedy boom, Ian Cognito was one of the UK's most...

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