Boff Whalley is one of the founding members of the band Chumbawamba. In more recent years he has been a playwright and the founder of Commoners Choir, which combines political activism with singing. He is the author of four books, including Run Wild, about his experiences as a fell runner. He lives near Leeds, but can often be found singing from the terraces at Burnley FC games.

Over the past four years he has composed modern operas for Welsh National Opera in collaboration with a Cardiff-based centre for refugees and asylum seekers, and recent collaborators include West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, Harmony Refugee Choir and, as part of the 2024 Fete of Britain, with musician Brian Eno.

But: Life Isn’t Like That, is it? is Boff’s new book. A celebration of life’s disruptions and digressions – a collection of stories about real lives, real people, and real life. Stuttering, disjointed, funny, ridiculous, and unplanned. Boff weaves these wayward stories together by travelling around the country to meet up with people who, knowingly or unknowingly, altered the course of his own life, to retrace the pin-ball route his life has taken along the way, and to say a simple, “Thank you”. Part reading, part gig, and part conversation, this – the Sunderland leg of a national tour – will also feature a stall of books from the publisher – PM Press – who run their UK operation from Sunderland!