Richard Tyrone Jones (born 1980) is a British

performance poet Performance poetry is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. It covers a variety of styles and genres. History The phenomenon of performance poetry, a kind of poetry specifically made for and offer ...

, writer and comedian. He is director of ''Utter! Spoken Word'' and director of

spoken word Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an oral tradition, ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetic ...

at the

Edinburgh Festival __NOTOC__ This is a list of Arts festival, arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the ...

Free Fringe The Free Fringe (also known as PBH's Free Fringe, after its founder, Peter Buckley Hill) is an organisation that promotes free shows during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, every August. Unlike most event prom ...

''.

Career

He attended

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, where he studied history. While there he co-founded comedy group Fat Fat Pope. After the group disbanded in 2001 he began performing poetry, with his first collection, ''Germline'', published in 2009. His poems have also been published in ''Rising'', ''Magma'', ''The Delinquent'' and other magazines. In February 2010 he staged his own funeral at the

Whitechapel Art Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

as a work of

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. Unknown to him, he had actually developed

dilated cardiomyopathy Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a condition in which the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump blood effectively. Symptoms vary from none to feeling tired, leg swelling, and shortness of breath. It may also result in chest pain or fainting. C ...

(heart failure) and a few weeks after the performance was admitted to hospital, where he nearly died. The experience provided the material for Jones's debut one-man show, ''Big Heart'', which tries to raise awareness of his condition. With support from the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...

, he toured the show extensively around the UK, and performed in Canada at the

Victoria Fringe Festival Intrepid Theatre is a not-for-profit organization in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, that produces the annual Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival, Uno Fest: Canada’s Singular Live Theatre Event, and a year-round series of international theatre pr ...

and

Vancouver Fringe Festival The Vancouver Fringe Festival is an annual alternative theatre festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada established in 1985. The event is organized and sponsored by the Vancouver Fringe Theatre Society, a non-profit organization found ...

. ''Big Heart'' was later adapted into a three-part series that aired on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

in July 2013."Richard Tyrone Jones's Big Heart"
BBC Radio 4. The sequel to ''Big Heart'', titled ''Crap Time Lord'', further explored the complications of living with chronic heart failure, and won minor acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014. He has appeared, in various guises, at 400+ events including

Latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from −90° at t ...

Peterborough Festival The Peterborough Festival is held annually in the UK city of Peterborough. The festival takes place over a two-week period, usually the last week of June and the first week of July. The first set of events of the festival take place at the emba ...

and residencies at "Spoonful of Poison" (also frequent guest host). He has hosted and run workshops for

Apples & Snakes Apples and Snakes, based at the Albany Theatre in Deptford, south-east London, is an organisation for performance poetry and the spoken word in England. It has been described as the main organisation promoting performance poetry in Britain. Set ...

. In 2008 he ran a month of slams for the

Hackney Empire Hackney Empire is a theatre on Mare Street, in Hackney in the London Borough of Hackney. Originally designed by Frank Matcham it was built in 1901 as a music hall, and expanded in 2001. Described by ''The Guardian'' as "the most beautiful theat ...

and was in Liz Bentley's Fringe show Edinburgh-by-sea. He won the fourth Poetry Idol contest at Shortfuse, and has hosted for them, the UK antifolk festivals and for

Pete Doherty Peter Doherty (born 12 March 1979) is an English musician. He is best known for being co-frontman of the Libertines, which he formed with Carl Barât in 1997. His other musical projects are indie rock, indie bands Babyshambles and Peter Dohert ...

. He retired in 2018.

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Richard Tyrone 1980 births Living people British spoken word artists