Philip Watson

Philip Watson (photo: Brid O'Donovan) is an experienced journalist who has written articles on a wide variety of subjects. His in-depth features range from 9/11 to the Poker Million tournament, fathers’ rights to Chernobyl children, Miles Davis to (a film version of) James Joyce’s Ulysses, British soldiers injured in Afghanistan to the Peace One Day campaign, and the Irish boom to the Irish bust.

Interviews and profiles extend from Martin Scorsese to Kate Beckinsale, Will Self to William Boyd, Paul Weller to young British trumpet star Laura Jurd, conman "King Con" to Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, and maverick British inventor James Dyson to radical American comic Lenny Bruce.

Philip gained a distinction on the postgraduate journalism course at University of Wales, Cardiff and worked for a number of years at GQ, where he was deputy editor, and Esquire, where he was editor-at-large. He has been freelance for the past decade or more, contributing articles and features to many publications in Britain, Ireland and the US, including the Telegraph Magazine, Guardian, Sunday Times, Observer, Irish Times, London Evening Standard, Travel + Leisure and music magazine The Wire. He has also appeared on radio and television programmes in the UK and Ireland, including RTÉ arts review show The Works. He is the editor of More Than A Game: GQ on Sport (Orion) and a collection of his interviews with musicians features in the anthology Invisible Jukebox (Quartet).

Philip's biography of the guitarist Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer, was published by Faber in March 2022.