Wordworms Premier

A show of wild imaginings for ages 7 to 107
Mark Gwynne Jones premiers his new young people’s collection Wordworms! at the Buxton Pavillion Studio Theatre
Fri 18th, Wed 23rd and Thurs 24th July.

In a family show of wild imaginings, award winning poet and performer, Mark Gwynne Jones invites you to meet the boy with the eye on his index finger, learn to escape school by becoming a cat and make friends with a giant toad! His show at this year’s Buxton Festival Fringe will introduce you to some extraordinary characters and lead you to a place where words are alive and the impossible is possible.

Based on his new collection for young readers, Wordworms! – the show centres on how the words we think and speak are alive, how they shape the way we feel, and of the magic they possess. A magic sometimes used to transform our world in humorous ways: If I were a poet… he writes, I’d turn celebrities / into thin air / then sell them on eBay, / in a jam jar!

Mark says ‘Young people respond well to live poetry. They enjoy its energy, playful irreverence and sense of danger. It comes down to the pictures and the pictures tell the story. I think we’re hardwired for narrative, everyone loves a good story!’

When asked about the title of his show, Mark says ‘Words are alive… They’re Wordworms! Living creatures… They’ve always had wings but now they fly faster than ever, can travel the world in an instance and will sometimes change the way you think and feel. They can be your best friend and your worst enemy. They’re magic and can pretty much change anything!’

For tickets visit www.undergroundvenues.co.uk tel (noon-3pm) 020 8144 0070

Click here for Mark Gwynne Jones website.

The Devil’s Arse

The Devil lends Mark Gwynne Jones £100, and shows him the world’s luxury goods and luxury girls…

Wondermentalist Cabaret

Mark Gwynne Jones on BBC Radio 4’s Wondermentalist Cabaret, recorded live at the Way With Words Festival, Dartington Hall.

In Memory of John Thorne

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‘Our man in black at the back… breathes in the light of the dawn and all is bliss, all is glow, everything glows with the man, everything glows. Can we hear it please for Mr John Thorne’.

John Cooper Clarke

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John Cooper Clarke at The Wardrobe, Leeds, February 2000 in the first run of Route Live nights. We’d brought JCC’s friend Eric to the club as a surprise. At spotting Eric, JCC got very comfortable at the bar and was complimentary about the club’s standard of vodka martini. Several drinks later he took to the stage. We’d only booked him for an hour but he was up there for nearly two, clearly enjoying himself. On the day Manchester United had played Leeds United. JCC is a big Red, so started the show with, ‘My mate Eric has recorded Match of the Day, and we’re going to watch it later so I don’t want to know the result. If you are happy, don’t show it. If you are sad, don’t show it. If you are indifferent, well that’s okay.’ It was a magic performance, with only three poems in the whole 120 minutes.

We bumped into JCC a few months later and he talked about the night. He wondered if it was a serious poetry club we were running because he’d been surprised and amused by heckles from the floor calling for ‘more poetry’. For the record, the actor Steve Husion was there that night and he demanded his ticket-money back. ‘I’ve come to see a poet, not a drunken stand-up comedian.’ We figured JCC’s routine about being served a plate of meat by a German with no sense of irony to be poetry in itself.

On the support card that night we had Marvellous Phil Hancock, Andy Campbell, The Route Band (Budists) and tunes were supplied by DJ Pedro Gonzalez. Pedro had been given the nickname ‘The Noisy Spaniard’ by Eric a few years earlier in Salford. It was a name JCC used and we stuck with. I seem to remember he played The Ramones and plenty of early Rock n Roll numbers that night.

Not long after this event we made a trip with Eric to Strangeways prison to meet the governor. We wanted to put a JCC show on for the prisoners in a Johnny Cash kind of event. It turned out that the governor was a big fan and was up for it. So was JCC. Not sure why it never actually came off, probably the sheer hassle of trying organise it meant it ran away from us. Pity. It would have been golden.

Photos by Kevin Reynolds. At the top, with a vodka martini. And at the bottom with an ever lit Benson and Hedges fag. These were the days when you could smoke in clubs and throughout his set JCC would ask the audience, ‘Anyone got a Hedges, just throw them all up’ which was a cue for a barrage of cigs to fly at the stage like paper aeroplanes.

Free Poetry Podcast

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Free Poetry Podcast – featuring some Mark Gwynne Jones magic.

 

Tracklist: The Inevitable Chair (0:00) Helical Staircase (0:57) Alien Rave! (5:06) Forget (10:31) Season of Mists (15:02) The Birmingham 666 (17:56) The Best and Worst of Times (18:50) Stop the Week (20:21) Omens in Bloom (24:58) Brassed Off Billy Monty (29:08) Signing Out (32:36)

Click here to download MP3.