Allie Esiri

Allie Esiri
Born	Allison Byrne
Alma mater	St Catharine's College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)	Poetry curator, anthologist, app creator, producer
Spouse	Mark Esiri
Children	3

Allie Esiri is a British writer, poetry curator and producer who is a former stage, film, and television actress. Esiri is a curator of poetry anthologies, apps and audiobooks with live events at festivals and at theatres including a yearly night at London's National Theatre. Esiri devised two poetry apps: The Love Book, an interactive literary app on iOS, and iF Poems, an educational poetry app.

Poetry anthologies

The first of her series of poetry anthologies is A Poem for Every Night of the Year which won the IBW Book award 2017. A collection of many of the greatest poems ever written, each poem has a daily introduction, written by Esiri. This series of anthologies have been picked as best books of the year in The Times, Observer, Guardian and New Statesman.

Esiri's follow-up anthology, A Poem for Every Day of the Year was published in 2017, with the daily audiobook poems read by Helena Bonham Carter and Simon Russell Beale. The Guardian selected it as one of the ten best ever poetry books. The Times chose the audiobook as one of their best audiobooks of the year. Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year was published – with audiobook cast including Paapa Essiedu, Damian Lewis, Helen McCrory and Simon Russell Beale – in 2019. It was The Times best audiobook and included in The Observer best books of the year. A Poet for Every Day of the Year was published in September 2021. A Nursery Rhyme for Every Night of the Year was published by Macmillan Children's Books in March 2023. Esiri's poetry collection, 365 Poems for Life was published in October 2023.

Acting career

Esiri read Modern and Medieval Languages at St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge Allie joined Catz in 1985 to study Modern & Medieval Languages where she appeared in productions including The Winter's Tale directed by Tim Supple and a production of Cyrano de Bergerac, directed by Sam Mendes. Byrne's first major television role was in the Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation of The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1990. In 1992 she played Olivia in an English Shakespeare Company production of Twelfth Night directed by Michael Pennington and Macbeth directed by Michael Bogdanov.

In 1995, she played Lady Kiely in the television programme Sharpe's Battle, alongside Sean Bean and Hugh Fraser, with whom she had previously appeared in the Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation of The Mysterious Affair at Styles. She played one of the lead roles in the ITV series Call Red (1996), a seven-part series. She also appeared in the Merchant Ivory Productions film, Howards End and the Kenneth Branagh film In the Bleak Midwinter. In 1999 she played environmental activist Teri Riley opposite Trevor Eve in the TV film Doomwatch: Winter Angel. Other acting credits include the sitcoms Men Behaving Badly and Goodnight Sweetheart, the TV dramas A Touch of Frost, Minder and Van der Valk, Dr Faustus at Greenwich Theatre and David Hare's The Secret Rapture.

Literary career and live shows

Byrne ceased acting in 1999 to write and create poetry projects. She wrote freelance articles for American Vogue, The New York Times, and London's Evening Standard ES magazine, and now works with poetry and technology. Under her married name of Allie Esiri she creates poetry anthologies, apps and shows. Esiri creates regular poetry shows with readers including Damian Lewis, Helen McCrory, Samuel West, Dominic West, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Hiddleston, Tobias Menzies, Dominic West, Emma Corrin, Asa Butterfield, Stephen Fry, David Harewood, Giles Terera, Tamsin Greig and Sophie Turner. "A Poem for Every Night of the Year" was launched at the National Theatre (the first of a series of yearly events) on the Olivier stage on 25 November 2016. Esiri curated similar events at the Hay Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Oxford Literary Festival and Bath Festivals. A Poem for Every Day of the Year show at the National Theatre took place on 10 November 2017 - joining Esiri on stage were actors Adjoa Andoh, Simon Russell Beale, Joanna Lumley, Stephen Mangan, Helen McCrory and Samuel West.

Esiri curated and hosted an event, Women Poets Through the Ages in November 2018 firstly at the National Theatre with Joanna Lumley, Helen McCrory, Kate Fleetwood, Sheila Atim and Indira Varma; then at London's Bridge Theatre in April 2019 with Helena Bonham Carter, Helen McCrory and Pippa Bennett-Warner.

Esiri's Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year live shows at the National Theatre and Hay Festival have featured Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Corrin, Diana Quick, Paapa Essiedu, Christopher Eccleston, Simon Russell Beale, Samuel West and Olivia Williams and there is a film, available on YouTube recorded during the lockdown for the Hay Festival starring Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West, introduced by Esiri. A co-production with Regents Park Open Air Theatre and Allie Esiri of Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year – Live took place in July 2024 at the Open Air theatre, with a cast including Damian Lewis, Luke Thompson, Olivia Williams, Susan Wokoma and Toheeb Jimoh.

A Poet for Every Day of the Year 's launch show at the National Theatre was dedicated to long-term collaborator Helen McCrory and was curated by Esiri and co-hosted with Damian Lewis. Friends of Helen McCrory joined Esiri and Lewis for the hour's show on the Lyttleton stage: Simon Russell Beale, Fay Ripley, Lesley Sharp and Danny Sapani.

Poetry for Every Day show at the National Theatre, included several readings from A Nursery Rhyme for Every Night of the Year from Tom Hiddleston, Asa Butterfield, Kate Fleetwood, Sope Dirisu and Daria Plahity. The event was in aid of the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian appeal. A Nursery Rhyme for Every Night of the Year event was at the Hay Festival in May 2023 with Esiri, Helena Bonham Carter, Tony Robinson, Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson, Malcolm Donaldson, Olivia Williams, Brian Bilston, JB Gill, Tony Robinson and Samuel West.

Poetry apps

In 2011, Esiri co-created the poetry app, "iF Poems" and its accompanying book "iF, A Treasury of Poems for Almost Every Possibility". Esiri conceived "iF Poems" as an educational poetry app for children of any age. It was chosen to be in The Sunday Times Best Apps of the year list and in The Spectator's top ten ibooks of the year. No longer available, poems were read on the app by Esiri's long term collaborators Helena Bonham Carter, Bill Nighy, Harry Enfield, and Tom Hiddleston.

Esiri then created "The Love Book App" recommended by Apple and available on iOS platforms. It has 300 poems, quotes, letters and short stories on the theme of love, read by Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Watson, Damian Lewis, Tom Hiddleston, Helen McCrory and Gina Bellman. The app is illustrated by Kate Moross.

Selected television credits

• Doomwatch: Winter Angel (1999) – as Teri Riley
• The Bill – as D.S. Hunt (1998)
• Goodnight Sweetheart 1 episode – as Kate (1997)
• Call Red – many episodes, as Alyson Butler (1996)
• Men Behaving Badly 1 episode – as Jill (1995)
• Sharpe's Battle – as Lady Kiely (1995)
• A Touch of Frost – as Ruth Ormrod (1995)
• So Haunt Me as Vic Lewis (1993)
• Van der Valk, The Ties That Bind – as Petra van Leurink (1992)
• Minder The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Entrepreneur and Three Cons Make A Mountain – as Lucy (1991)
• Agatha Christie's Poirot – The Mysterious Affair at Styles – Cynthia Murdoch (1990)

General references

• The Telegraph review of The National Theatre's A Poem for Every Day of the Year Joanna Lumley is an excellent walrus – A Poem for Every Day of the Year, National Theatre, review
• The Telegraph review of The National Theatre's A Poem for Every Night of the Year A Poem for Every Night of the Year, Olivier Theatre, review
• Sunday Times magazine, Allie Esiri 'How does it feel to pick a poem for Christmas' How it feels to... pick a poem for Christmas
• Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory read poems from The Love Book at Cheltenham Literature Festival for Allie Esiri in The Times Husband and wife show support for public poetry with love story in verse
• The Times on Allie Esiri and her iF Poems app From Lewis Carroll to Keats, an app to introduce children to the joy of poetry
• A Poem for Every Day of the Year and A Poem for Every Night of the Year in The Guardian's top ten poetry anthologies Top 10 poetry anthologies
• A Poem for Every Night of the Year in The Observer's best books 2016 Hidden gems of 2016: the best books you may have missed
• The Guardian's best children's books for 2018 of all ages The best children’s books of 2018 for all ages
• The Love Book app created by Allie Esiri with Tom Hiddleston in the Telegraph Love Book app launched for National Poetry Day

External links

• Allie Esiri at IMDb