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Allan Prior was a Mancunian Poet who came to prominence in the mid-late 1960s performing with "The Unity of Arts Roadshow" featuring a Pshycadelic Liquid Light Show, Storyteller Bruce Burgess, a Ballet dancer called Juliet and often featured Chorlton Heavies The Grit Band.
Allan a bald headed, heavily bearded flip flop wearing Bohemian eccentric in his mid fifties was a contemporary of Salford's very own John Cooper-Clarke at a time when performance poetry was something new and exciting on the Manchester club scene.
GIGS INCLUDED:
The Bolton Octagon Theatre.
The Magic Village.
Ardwick Co-op Hall.
Leeds Civic Theatre.
I knew Allan really well when I was in my late teens. I probably met him at the Magic Village but I used to dance with his dance troupe after the Village closed. We got in free to every venue in Manchester including the university unions as his hippy dancers - great fun.
He was probably in his 40s in the early 70s. He had 6 children and worked in computers at ICL in Manchester - possibly in Gorton? He had grown up with the development of computers and I wish I'd asked him more about his work. He got an honorary degree before he died way too soon of cancer.
He was anti-drugs - he reckoned they killed off too many brain cells.
He was a lovely man. He told us that one day sound and colour would be linked through computer generated patterns.
I worked at Salford library and Art Gallery and he used to come and meet me at lunchtime occasionally.
I wish I had kept in touch with his family after he died but I moved away and when I came back to live in the area I never came across anyone else who knew him.
He was a creative mover and a free spirit. He was small, with wild red hair and a beard - quite eccentric looking for his age and profession.
Nicky Crewe
4/11/11 |
