Friends of Jackie Hagan are re-staging Magic Animals, a poetry session she used to host, in a one-off tribute show on 1 February at Manchester’s Contact theatre.

Jackie, a multi-award-winning poet, playwright and performer, died last year at the age of 43 after a long battle with illness. She suffered from APS, a disorder of the immune system that causes an increased risk of blood clots, and systemic sclerosis, a rare, chronic disease that is four times more common among women than among men. She was a double amputee,

Originally from Skelmersdale in Lancashire, she worked extensively for the British Council, represented the UK in slam poetry in Rio de Janeiro, and was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary short. She won a Saboteur award for Best Spoken Word Show twice, was a Creative Future Literary Award winner, and regularly appeared on BBC Ouch! and BBC Radio 4. In 2023, she was a headliner at Morecambe Poetry Festival.

After her first amputation in 2015, she toured with her show Some People Have Too Many Legs. Other shows included This Is Not A Safe Space and Cosmic Scallies, and she starred in and wrote an episode of Crip Tales for BBC Four and BBC America – Paper Knickers was broadcast in 2020.

All profits from this event will go to Scleroderma and Raynaud’s UK, SRUK.co.uk. More details