Nat Clare is a singer/songwriter, poet and writer who is based in Bolton in the UK.
 

Individually and as part of Optical Busstop Nat has played at many gigs across the country, some memorable ones include: Leicester University Arts Festival along side poet John Silkin, Lancaster Arts Festival, Liverpool University Arts week & Real ale Festival (never again), Bolton Busker, Manchester West Indian Centre with John Cooper Clark as well as too many pubs and clubs to remember. In Bolton his home gigs were held at The Gypsy's Tent and later the he performed many times at Bolton's Socialist Club in Wood Street.
He was involved in creating and running "Bolton Free Press" an alternative Newspaper of the 1970s.

Nat with Paul Blackburn, as the "Poor Poets", ran a highly successful monthly event originally called "Mutant Music Hall" but later "Live Friday" which ran for three years in the early 90s at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton. There were also two "Live Friday" specials (at the Pack Horse hotel and the Albert Halls) which they were asked to mount in two consecutive years as part of the Bolton Festival, and another special as part of "Poetry Live in the North West". Out of this came several appearances on the notorious TV programme "The Word" and one of their performances was chosen for a compilation of the programme's best bits. You can see a video of one of the poems they performed on the http://www.opticalbusstop.com/Poems.htm page on the Optical Busstop web site.

At some stage Nat became involved in community theatre, touring locally in a hugely successful play called "Will you come o' Sunday Morning" adapted by his friend Les Smith (now a famous playwright) from the work of Allan Clark, music by Nat Clare and directed by Romy Baskerville (a cracking actress who you will have seen on TV in Coronation Street as Ken Barlow's headmistress plus lots of other parts in many, many shows) which celebrated the mass trespass at Winter Hill some 100 years earlier. This was revived a couple of years ago by the Octagon Youth Theatre who used Nat's music and original songs.
 

Nat enjoyed great acclaim as a singer/songwriter on the folk circuit appearing around the country and on several local Radio stations. At the same time he was a regular columnist for North West Folk magazine and worked on a voluntary basis for NW Arts. He also wrote for several TV programmes including "Not the Nine O'clock News" and particularly "Spitting Image" where he was a credited writer and who used a great deal of his material.
 

Over the past few years Nat has been working with Paul Blackburn producing content for the Optical Busstop website with collaborations and contributions from a number of other people. At the same time he has become increasingly involved in the vibrant Poetry Scene in the North West performing across the North West and beyond in venues such as Bolton's Octagon Theatre (inevitably); Studio Salford; Manchester's Jushua Brooks; The Old Police Station, Leeds; Poetry Cafe, Preston and the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. For National Poetry day 2006 he organised & performed at the prestigious Turton High School Media and Arts College; Dave Morgan said of this event, "I had some misgivings about the capacity of school kids to sit through an hour of poetry in a fairly passive way, I was wrong, possibly one of the best experiences of reading in public I have had. My other misgiving about whether we would independently select appropriate material was destroyed by the range of pieces chosen and the professional way in which they were delivered. Quote me on this".
He is involved in local poetry group "Write Out Loud" and is a regular compere for their events. He won the August 2006 Slam Idol Pod Cast with his poem "Sex Bag" a video of which can be seen along with some of his other poems at  http://www.opticalbusstop.com/Poems.htm - click on the certificate on the left to view it.

In the past few months, Nat has begun writing and directing an experimental video piece called “Marbles” and has also begun hiring a video camera so that they could film his own and other poet's performances. He hopes to build on this by not only filming but also creating a website to showcase poets and their performances by providing vidcasts for downloading. He is also extremely interested in developing multi-media projects involving video, art, music, puppetry and the spoken word.

Nat recently performed two of his songs at the prestigious "Studio" Salford. Here is some of the feedback he got there: "That bloke with guitar and harmonica was fuckin' mint; beautiful voice."  "Lovely to see live performance - you looked very comfortable on stage." " I was fascinated by the guitar playing and mouth organ at the same time." "Particularly liked the words of the second song (Half Empty)". "Nat Clare - Brilliant - book him again!"  "Guitarist/singer/songwriter - great performance style - fantastic lyricist"  "Man with guitar and harp - fucking cool song about thumbs and drinking -  lovely folk voice - sonorous and powerful". The event organiser comments "So there you go!  I personally really enjoyed your set and would like to hear more too.  Thanks again, Nat, hope you enjoyed it!".

To Listen to some of his songs click here.

You can book Nat Clare to compere or perform at your events: email: nat@doctorclare.freeserve.co.uk

Go to the Optical Busstop Web Site