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  "@type": "Person",
  "@id": "https://www.screensearch.co.uk/person/3656832/ian-cognito",
  "name": "Ian Cognito",
  "url": "https://www.screensearch.co.uk/person/3656832/ian-cognito",
  "knownForDepartment": "Acting",
  "description": "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.",
  "birthDate": "1958-11-21",
  "deathDate": "2019-04-11",
  "birthPlace": "London, United Kingdom",
  "alternateName": [
    "Paul Barbieri"
  ],
  "image": "https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w500/7lcb5Ns2DNXQbu63nYjtAmOsuMl.jpg",
  "lastVerified": "6 May 2026",
  "filmography": [
    {
      "mediaType": "movie",
      "tmdbId": 1223270,
      "title": "Filth!",
      "year": "1994",
      "role": "as Ian Cognito (Paul Barbieri)",
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      "posterUrl": "https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w500/6DiHsWpea5CYnyi2IvLYsVAoq2w.jpg",
      "screenSearchUrl": "https://www.screensearch.co.uk/watch/movie/1223270/filth-1994"
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    {
      "mediaType": "movie",
      "tmdbId": 985791,
      "title": "Ian Cognito: A Life and A Death On Stage",
      "year": "2022",
      "role": "as Self (archive)",
      "roleKind": "cast",
      "voteAverage": 6.3,
      "posterUrl": "https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w500/fJPxCobGJnKoJIun86wuHVbxwvk.jpg",
      "screenSearchUrl": "https://www.screensearch.co.uk/watch/movie/985791/ian-cognito-a-life-and-a-death-on-stage-2022"
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}