John Peter Sloan

John Peter Sloan made a comedy act out of teaching English to Italian audiences. Born in Birmingham, he left England in his teens to travel around Europe as a singer and guitarist, and after arriving in Italy in 1990 he fronted the rock band The Max until 2000. He then turned to English teaching with a method that leaned on play and humour, opening his first school in Milan in 2011 and a second one in Rome in 2013.

Milan audiences got to know him on stage. In 2007 he put on educational shows in English at the Zelig theatre as part of the Zelig in English series, and he wrote and directed productions including Culture Shock, An Englishman in Italy and the dark comedy Full Moon. He performed Rob Becker's monologue Defending the Caveman in English and wrote and played his own comic monologue, I'm not a Penguin.

The same tone carried his books and his television work. His humorous article-lessons ran in Speak Up, and Instant English, his 2010 book for Edizioni Gribaudo, was followed by a long row of titles such as Lost in Italy and English da zero. On Mediaset he appeared in Zelig Circus, he was a guest on Le invasioni barbariche, and from September 2014 he had a weekly slot, Du Iù Spik Inglish?, on I fatti vostri on Rai 2. In 2013 he dubbed Bulldog, the character John Cleese voices in the original, for the Italian version of the Disney film Planes. He died in 2020.