Born in St Anne’s, Nottingham in 1956. Now lives in Brighton with his wife, the screenwriter Angela Pell, and their son, Johnny. He is a writer, poet and TV and Film producer and founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Literature festival) and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival.

 

In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to Television.

 

He co-wrote and script edited every episode of the multi-award winning Mrs Merton show and the spin off series Mrs Merton and Malcolm. He also co-created and co-wrote the first series of The Royle Family.

With Steve Coogan he co-wrote the BAFTA winning Paul and Pauline Calf Video Diaries, Coogan’s Run, Tony Ferrino, Doctor Terrible and all three of Steve’s live tours and the film The Parole Officer.

 

Setting up Baby Cow Productions Ltd in 1999 Henry Executive Produced all, and script edited many of the shows of its seventeen and a half year output during his tenure as MD.

Highlights of the Baby Cow output during this time include

Philomena, I Believe in Miracles, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, Uncle, Marion and Geoff, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf, Hunderby, Camping and Alan Partridge,

 

Since retiring in April 2016 Henry has written and performed seven BBC Radio 4 shows “a normal family’,  ‘a normal life’,  ‘a normal love’, ‘a normal creativity’, ‘a normal nature’, a normal universe and ‘a normal communication’ combining comedy, poetry and stories about bringing up his autistic son. These shows are often now available on BBC sounds.

 

He was recently given a honorary doctorate of letters by Nottingham Trent University, another by Nottingham University, and has had a beer and a bus named after him in Nottingham !

 

Henry performs poetry at Literature Festivals around the UK and has 10 recent poetry collections out from Flapjack Press including a hardback selected works ‘The Escape Plan’. Henry also has a memoir ‘A Normal Family’ published by Two Roads Press telling the story of his family which is co-written with his wife, Angela Pell.