“One of the finest comic writers working today.”
Will Self

Chairperson: Kevin Gildea

Jon Ronson has made a career investigating the strangeness of other people, but ever since he dropped out of journalism school to join the Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey! Big Band, it’s been apparent that Ronson is an intriguing figure in his own right.

Since the late 1990s, through a string of award-winning documentaries and books, Ronson has investigated the bizarre, the eccentric and the terrifyingly insane. Whether hanging out with the Klu Klux Klan in Them, exploring the nature of psychopathy in The Psychopath Test, or the bizarre history of the US military’s paranormal experiments in The Men Who Stare at Goats, Ronson displays an unfaltering eye for the absurd, while never allowing the jokes to obscure our view of darker themes.

His latest project has a distinctly Irish flavour. Ronson has co-written the screenplay for Frank, a film loosely based on his Frank Sidebottom experiences, directed by Lenny Abrahamson (of Garage and Adam & Paul) and starring Michael Fassbender as the man in the giant papier-mâché head. In his latest book, Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries, he explores his fascination with madness, strange behaviour and the human mind, going on patrol with America's real-life superheroes and attending a UFO convention with Robbie Williams. He meets a man who tried to split the atom in his kitchen and another who is preparing to welcome aliens to earth. Join Jon Ronson for an often hiarious, sometimes disturbing, and always entertaining evening.