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 Stand-up 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 Britain’s "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.