Proudly the only performance poet on the Fringe circuit with two hearts, the “Ginger Nigel Havers of spoken word” Richard Tyrone Jones presents an hour of witty, candid and spellbinding poetry, and of course, incomparably virile sideburns.
There is such a wide variety in Jones’ lyrical smorgasbord
After holding a mock funeral for himself at his thirtieth birthday, Jones tells – with painful irony – of how, soon afterwards, he was diagnosed with life-threatening heart failure, which effectively turned him into a Time Lord.
After the implantation of a Cardioverter Defibrillator, which keeps his heart pumping steadily with small electric shocks, Jones considers himself ‘safe from death’, and uses his unique brand of poetry to illustrate his journey through rejection, dejection and heart disease with uplifting candour and self-deprecatory humour.
The title of Jones’ show is clearly a reference to his obsession with all things Doctor Who, a narrative vein that runs throughout the poet’s set. Jones best outlines his fascination with the peculiarities of his own existence, and the compromises he has had to make as a result of his heart failure in the aphorism “Defibrillation = Regeneration”. While there are frequent and sharp references to the 50-years-old-and-going-strong BBC series sure to delight any Doctor Who fan, there is such a wide variety in Jones’ lyrical smorgasbord that will entertain even those who have never seen the television programme.
Crap Time Lord is in equal parts funny and touching, and in an effort to convey his conflicted emotions with regards to his children, whom remarkably, he has never met – they are the miraculous creation of donated Cambridge-Graduate-Sperm – he imparts yet more poignant maxims in the poem ‘Small Hopes’.
Philosophical, funny and profound, Jones is a talent worth making time for at this year’s fringe.
