Main content

Celebrating Ivor Cutler

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 Extra celebrates the centenary of the extraordinary Scottish poet, performer and humourist, Ivor Cutler.

The deceptively quiet wordsmith was born on 15th January 1923 near the Rangers ground at Ibrox Park in Glasgow. "I have a harmonium and it's going to explode in two minutes," were the opening words spoken on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 1's Andy Kershaw Show in 1980 by Ivor Cutler.

Championed by everyone from the Beatles to Billy Connolly, Ivor Cutler was a poet, humourist and absurdist whose appearances on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ radio and TV span over seven decades. As well as producing a vast body of records, books and plays, Ivor was a notable eccentric, often seen cycling around London in plus fours, handing out homemade stickers and badges to strangers.

  • Archive on 4: Ivor Cutler at 90

    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4's 'party' to celebrate his life and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ archive in particular, with a full house of performers, fans, collaborators and even his long-term partner, Phyllis King.

  • Prince Ivor

    Scottish musician and humorist, Ivor Cutler is invited by the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's Piers Plowright to write a 20-minute opera, 'Prince Ivor'. However, from contract to the debut performance, nothing goes to plan...

  • Ivor Meets Craig

    "An artist is a sick person." Ivor Cutler talks to the New Zealand-born sculptor Craig Murray-Orr about neighbours, art and English inhibitions.

12 Cutlerisms by the late, great surrealist thinker

Celebrating some of the quirky characteristics of this cult figure, we invite you to delve into his surreal world with a selection of the choicest Cutlerisms...

  • Changing your pants is like taking a clean plate

  • Never knowingly understood

  • True happiness is a hypocrite

  • Befriend a bacterium

  • I want my mammy

  • The Squire on the hippopotamus is equal to the son of the other two squires

  • Slightly inperfect

  • How to be. Climb inside a dot and shut the door. Leave yourself outside

  • Add 15 inches to your stride and save 4% of insects

  • To remove this label take it off

  • Silence and Space [are] the dark flowers of creativity

  • No!