A well-known north-west poet has written a poem that was performed in the final episode of the hit TV comedy series ‘Alma’s Not Normal’. Gerry Potter told his Facebook followers: “The worst kept secret I’ve ever kept is out. I can’t tell you how truly joyous it was writing a poem for ‘Alma’s Not Normal’ and that poem being read/performed (actually, spectacularly performed), by the fabulous Siobhan Finneran [pictured left].

“In the last episode ‘Never Give a Hamster Matches’, Alma’s mum Lin (played by Siobhan, pictured left), has (under difficult circumstances), written a poem called ‘Never Give a Hamster Matches’. That’s all I’ll say in case you haven’t binged it. Sophie [pictured right] is one of my favourite people and she’s only gone and written one of my favourite shows… to be a small part of that groundbreaking show is poetically glorious.”

‘Alma’s Not Normal’ is set in Bolton, where Write Out Loud first started out. And Gerry Potter’s poetry collection, Planet Young, was Bafta-winner Sophie Willan’s chosen book on BBC TV’s Between the Covers.

Gerry told the Liverpool Echo newspaper:: “The mum in the show is a damaged woman; she’s mentally ill, she has a drug addiction and stuff like that. I got to write this poem, which is my first ever television big break, for a character that I am happy to write about. And not only am I writing about what I want to write about, but I have a top-notch actor, Siobhan Finneran, to do it.

“Sophie writes about what I call the ‘fiscal apartheid of the Tory party’. She writes about the people on the other side of that apartheid. In many ways, what I find interesting about the show is that not that long ago, there was so much poverty porn on television.

"This character could have been in any of these shows and be seen as rotten and nasty, but in this show, she’s a very powerful and very creative character - this is what we don’t see about those people and those worlds. Even the wildest crackhead could be a great poet but we don’t see that. The series shows that people can be in the most dire circumstances but they can still be creative and they can still be artists. And, I have to say, it’s a bloody good poem.”

PHOTOGRAPH: BBC