Murray Lachlan Young

Murray Lachlan Young (born 14 March 1969) is a British poet, stand-up performer, broadcaster, playwright, screenwriter and children's author.

He came to prominence during the Britpop era of the mid-1990s, when he became the only poet to sign a recording contract worth £1m.

Murray Lachlan Young was born the youngest of two boys in Washington DC, to a Scottish father and an English mother.

He was brought up in Sevenoaks, Kent, where he attended Wildernesse School, graduating from Salford University with a degree in media performance.

In 1998, he married singer Zoë Pollock and after moving to a smallholding near St Leonards-on-Sea, they had two children.

They moved to St Levan, Cornwall later in 2004, but separated in 2009.

In 2014, he married singer-songwriter Elizabeth Cavendish and set up home in Dalston, London, before separating in 2016.

Young lives in London.

Since Young's early shows supporting such acts as Julian Cope, the Pretenders and Dita Von Teese on the music and cabaret circuit in London, live stand-up poetry has been a key part of his career.

Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler magazine, writes "Murray is both an actor and a wit, a poet who can perform and a performer who can write poetry, rolled into one."

Live solo shows include:

Features:

Shorts:

In 2021, Murray Lachlan Young teamed up with Orbital's Paul Hartnoll for a lockdown inspired album called The Virus Diaries under the name Hartnoll & Young.

In June 2021, the pair released a single from the album called "Garden Centre (Push the Trolley)" as a follow-up to "I Need a Haircut".