Paul John Barbieri (21 November 1958  – 11 April 2019), known professionally as Ian Cognito, was an English stand-up comedian.

[3] 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.

[4] He openly embraced his excesses, once throwing a television from a hotel window ("room service was late") and often bringing a hammer on stage, banging a nail into a wall and hanging up his hat then saying: "This lets you know two things about me.

[9] While performing on 11 April 2019 at the Lone Wolf comedy club in Bicester, Cognito suffered an aortic dissection and collapsed during his set.

[11] After his death tributes came from across the comedy community, including Jimmy Carr, Matt Lucas, Katy Brand, Mark Steel, Shappi Khorsandi and Arthur Smith.