Ian Cognito

Ian Cognito real name Paul John Barbieri was a British alternative comedian of Italian Irish descent He won the Time Out Award for Standup 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 Britains 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