Cartoonist exhibits 28 years of work in unique exhibition

Now this unique collection of commentary on modern life, observations of the surreal and trademark topical wit will be brought together for the first time.

Displayed in Barfield’s home town of Thirsk in North Yorkshire, the vast exhibition of 200 cartoons will be on show at Rural Arts for two weeks in October.

The polymath artist, author, biologist, TV producer and radio comedy writer will also be entertaining visitors with a talk in the opening week at The Courthouse.

With a career which has embraced so many formats - from the TV quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to his current award-winning educational book series for children - Barfield has stories aplenty.

But it is his love of the simple line of cartoon strips that feature in his series Apparently which shines out. He explains:

“I've always had two interests - comics/comedy, and wildlife/nature/natural history. So I had frogs and toads and a grass snake. I used to go birdwatching and stuff but I was also obsessed with funny comics like the Dandy and the Beano.

“I used to get other people who had comics to keep them for me. Then we'd have members of the family, or family friends, and then when we’d turn up every six months to go and see them and I'd have a huge pile of comics. I'd just sit, probably with a crisp sandwich as my food of choice, and put them all in order, and then I'd go through them. I still read comics today.”

There’s plenty of examples of Barfield’s natural history interest among the exhibits with commentary on environmental issues being a regular theme but then there’s also quirky observations on everyday objects as varied as Ikea furniture and fridge magnets.

Readers of Private Eye will often get in touch to purchase a cartoon which particularly resonates with them plus some have been purchased as gifts for celebrities. Barfield discovered the famous cook and broadcaster Nigella Lawson even kept one in her downstairs loo!

Rural Arts senior creative producer Julian Hartley said the organisation was delighted to be hosting the exhibition.

“We’re very excited to be showing this exhibition and just feel very fortunate to have such an interesting artist living locally. Mike’s work has universal appeal and I’m certain all visitors will find something that will make them smile.”

Finding that humour is the whole point for Barfield. “I just want to make people laugh,” he says.

• The Mind of Mike Barfield free exhibition is at Rural Arts from Tuesday, October 8 to Saturday, October 19 and works will be available to purchase at an affordable price.

• Free tickets for an evening with Mike Barfield on Friday 11th October, 7pm can be reserved at the website https://www.ruralarts.org.

• The exhibition is part of The Courthouse’s Big Draw season, which encourages everyone to pick up a pen and draw https://thebigdraw.org/all-events