Jon Canter

Jon Canter has written plays for Watford Palace Theatre (The Baby), Frinton Theatre (A Marriage Made In Heaven, The Dog), Gilded Balloon Edinburgh (Spoons), and many plays for Radio 4, of which the most recent was Dinner With Dylan, broadcast to celebrate Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday.

For thirty years, Jon wrote stand-up with Lenny Henry. In 2019, he adapted Lenny’s autobiography Who Am I, Again? into a touring show. He also co-wrote Lenny’s material for Live At The Apollo. Other tv credits include Not The Nine O’Clock News; Murder Most Horrid (starring Dawn French); The Fly for the animated Mr Bean series; and two series of Fry & Laurie, for which he was Script Editor.

His novels are Worth (‘Powered by sharp and original wit and constantly fizzing prose’ – Daily Mail); Seeds Of Greatness (‘Funny, twisted, touching, funny, bitter and funny’ – Hugh Laurie); and A Short Gentleman (‘Elegantly written, civilised and genuinely funny’ – Scotsman) which became a Radio 4 drama series, starring Hugh Bonneville. James Kidd in The Independent called Jon ‘arguably the finest comic novelist working in Britain today’.

Jon also adapted the tv series Rev, about a doubting Anglican priest, into a novel – The Rev Diaries – which the Daily Telegraph called ‘Hilarious yet wonderfully humane’. And with John Lloyd, he co-authored Afterliff, The New Dictionary Of Things There Should Be Words For.

Throughout his career, he’s written for Radio 4. Believe It, the ‘radiography’ (radio autobiography) of Richard Wilson ran for six series, and won Best Scripted Comedy at the BBC Audio Awards. Boswell’s Lives, starring Miles Jupp - which won the Europa Prize - puts a floridly sycophantic, time-travelling Boswell in the company of great men and women from Marx to Pinter to Callas. The first episode was Boswell’s Life Of Johnson – inevitably, the Johnson was Boris.

Jon has appeared at the Hay, Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Lennoxlove, Chester, Aldeburgh, Beverley, Breckland and Petworth Literary Festivals, as well as Latitude and Jewish Book Week. He grew up in North London but for the last thirty years has lived in Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast with the painter Helen Napper.