- For other uses, see: Terry Jones (disambiguation).
| Terry Jones |
|---|
| Birth name: |
| Terence Graham Parry Jones |
| Born: 1 February 1942 Colwyn Bay, Wales |
| Occupation |
| Actor, comedian, writer, director, presenter |
| Career milestones |
| Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967-1969) Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974) Ripping Yarns (1975-1979) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004) Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006) |
| Official website |
| terry-jones.net |
Terence Graham Parry Jones (born 1 February 1942) is a British comedian, screenwriter and actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team.
Contents |
Early life
Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, Wales. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, where he was head boy; he graduated in English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. While there he performed comedy with Michael Palin, among others, in The Oxford Revue.
Career History
Before Python
Jones appeared in Twice a Fortnight with Palin, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, as well as in The Complete and Utter History of Britain. He also appeared in Do Not Adjust Your Set with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason (Jones speaks about this series during an interview which appears on both the DVDs for Do Not Adjust Your Set and the At Last the 1948 Show). He wrote for The Frost Report and several other of David Frost's programmes on British television.
Monty Python
As a member of the Monty Python troupe, Jones is remembered for his roles as middle-aged women and the bowler-hatted "man in the street". He typically wrote sketches in partnership with Palin.
One of Jones' early concerns was devising a fresh format for the Python TV shows, and it was largely Jones who developed the stream-of-consciousness style which abandoned punchlines and instead encouraged the fluid movement of one sketch to another - allowing the team's conceptual humour the space to “breathe”. Jones also objected to TV directors’ use of sped-up film, over-emphatic music, and static camera style, and took a keen interest in the direction of the shows. He later committed himself to directing the Python films Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Life of Brian, and Monty Python's Meaning of Life, and as director, finally gained fuller control of the projects, devising a visual style that allowed the performers 'space'; for instance, in the use of wide shots for long exchanges of dialogue, and more economical use of music. As demonstrated in many of his sketches with Palin, Jones was also interested in making comedy that was visually impressive, feeling that interesting settings augmented, rather than detracted from, the humour. His methods encouraged many future television comedians to break away from conventional studio-bound shooting styles, as demonstrated into the 21st century by shows such as Green Wing, Little Britain and The League of Gentlemen. Of Jones' contributions as a performer, his parodic, screechy-voiced depictions of middle-aged women are among the most memorable. His humour, in collaboration with Palin, tends to be conceptual in nature; a typical Palin/Jones sketch draws its humour from the absurdity of the scenario. For example, in the “Summarise Proust Competition”, Jones plays a cheesy game show host giving a series of contestants 15 seconds to condense Marcel Proust's lengthy work A la recherche du temps perdu; in the "Mouse Organ" sketch, he plays a tuxedoed man using mallets to bash mice who have been trained to squeak at a select pitch, and when “played” in the correct order reproduce the tune "Bells of St. Mary". In both cases, the laughs originate in the madness of the idea itself. Jones was also notable for his gifts as a Chaplinesque physical comedian, perhaps best demonstrated in the "Undressing in Public" sketch.
Directorial work
Jones co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam, and was sole director on two further Monty Python movies, Life of Brian and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. (The latter featured one of his most famous characters, the grotesquely fat Mr. Creosote). As a film director, Jones finally gained fuller control of the projects and devised a visual style that complemented the humour and, once again, concentrated on allowing the performers room to breathe. Examples include the use of wide shots for long exchanges of dialogue, and more economical use of music. His methods encouraged many future television comedians to break away from slapstick or studio-bound shooting styles, as demonstrated by Green Wing and The League of Gentlemen. His later films include Erik the Viking (1989) and The Wind in the Willows (1996).
As an author
He co-wrote Ripping Yarns with Palin, and wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth (1986), although his draft went through several rewrites and several other writers before being filmed; much of the finished film wasn't written by Jones at all. He has also written numerous works for children, including Fantastic Stories and The Beast with a Thousand Teeth. He has written books and presented television documentaries on medieval and ancient history and the history of numeral systems. His series often challenge popular views of history: for example, Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004) argues that the Middle Ages was a more sophisticated period than is popularly thought, and Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006) presents the cultural achievements of peoples conquered by the Roman Empire in a more positive light than Roman historians typically have. He has written numerous editorials for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer condemning the Iraq war. Many of these editorials were published in a paperback collection titled Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror. Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (1980) offers an alternative take on the historical view of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Knight's Tale as being a paragon of Christian virtue. Jones asserts that, after closer examination of historical rather than literary context, The Knight is actually a typical mercenary and a potentially cold-blooded killer.
Personal life
Jones has been married since 1970 to Alison Telfer, and they have two children together, Sally (born in 1974) and Bill (born in 1976). On 21 October 2006, it was reported in The Daily Mirror, that Jones had been diagnosed with bowel cancer.[1] Another article dated three days later, also by The Mirror, indicated that the exploratory surgery performed on Jones had good results.[2]
Selected bibliography
Fiction
- Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic (1997), ISBN 0-330-35446-9 – a novel based on the computer game of the same name by Douglas Adams (Jones claims to have written the entire book while in the nude)
Illustrated by Michael Foreman
- Fairy Tales (1981), ISBN 0-907516-03-3
- The Saga of Erik the Viking (1983), ISBN 0-907516-23-8 – Children's Book Award 1984
- Nicobobinus (1985), ISBN 1-85145-000-9
- The Curse of the Vampire's Socks and Other Doggerel (1988), ISBN 1-85145-233-8 – poetry
- Fantastic Stories (1992), ISBN 1-85145-957-X
- The Beast with a Thousand Teeth (1993), ISBN 1-85793-070-3
- A Fish of the World (1993), ISBN 1-85793-075-4
- The Sea Tiger (1994), ISBN 1-85793-085-1
- The Fly-by-Night (1994), ISBN 1-85793-090-8
- The Knight and the Squire (1997), ISBN 1-86205-044-9
- The Lady and the Squire (2000), ISBN 1-86205-417-7 – nominated for a Whitbread Award
- Bedtime Stories (2002), ISBN 1-86205-276-X – with Nanette Newman
Illustrated by Brian Froud
- Goblins of the Labyrinth (1986), ISBN 1-85145-058-0
- The Goblin Companion: A Field Guide to Goblins (1996), ISBN 1-85793-795-3 – an abridged re-release, in a smaller format, with the colour plates missing
- Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book (1994), ISBN 1-85793-336-2
- Strange Stains and Mysterious Smells: Quentin Cottington's Journal of Faery Research (1996), ISBN 0-684-83206-2
- Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Journal (1998), ISBN 1-86205-024-4
- Lady Cottington's Fairy Album (2002), ISBN 1-86205-559-9
Illustrated by Martin Honeysett & Lolly Honeysett
- Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls with Michael Palin (1974) ISBN 0-413-32740-X
Non-fiction
- Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (1980), ISBN 0-297-77566-9; rev. ed. (1994), ISBN 0-413-69140-3
- Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery (2003), ISBN 0-413-75910-5 – with Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher and Juliette Dor
- Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror (2005), ISBN 1-56025-653-2
With Alan Ereira
- Crusades (1994), ISBN 0-563-37007-6
- Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004), ISBN 0-563-48793-3
- Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006), ISBN 0-563-49318-6
Screenplays
- Secrets (1973) – for TV, with Michael Palin
- Labyrinth (1986)
- Erik the Viking (1989) – includes a notice in the credits specifically disclaiming any link with Jones's earlier novel ("although he hopes it will help the sales")
- The Wind in the Willows (1996)
Documentary series
- Crusades (1995)
- Ancient Inventions - directed by Phil Grabsky & Daniel Percival (1998)
- The Hidden History of Egypt - directed by Phil Grabsky/The Hidden History of Rome - directed by Phil Grabsky (2002)
The Secret history of Sex & love - directed by Phil Grabsky
- Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004)
- The Story of 1 (2005)
- Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006)
Political articles
- I remain, sir, Haggard of the Hindu Kush - published in The Observer, December 30, 2001
- Spare our blushes and put a sack on it - published in The Observer, January 6, 2002
- Why grammar is the first casualty of war - published in The Daily Telegraph, January 12, 2002
- OK, George, make with the friendly bombs - published in The Observer, February 17, 2002
- A fox isn't a chicken. Is it? - published in The Observer, March 17, 2002
- If you want a free vote, ask nicely - published in The Observer, April 21, 2002
- The audacious courage of Mr Blair - published in The Observer, September 22, 2002
- I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush - published in The Observer, January 26, 2003
- Powell speaks with forked tongue - published in The Observer, February 23, 2003
- Could Tony Blair look at the internet now, please? - published in The Observer, March 2, 2003
- Mr Bush goes for the kill - published in The Observer, March 9, 2003
- Poor Tony Blair wakes up - published in The Observer, March 16, 2003
- Tony and the pixies - published in The Observer, March 23, 2003
- Welcome aboard the Iraqi gravy train - published in The Observer, April 13, 2003
- Mr Blair's dark days - published in The Observer, April 27, 2003
- "If fish can feel pain, then maybe Iraqi children can, too" - published in The Observer, May 4, 2003
- Why look in the crystal ball? - published in The Observer, May 4, 2003
- If politicians start telling the truth… - published in The Observer, May 18, 2003
- Alastair, God and the Devil - published in The Observer, July 6, 2003
- A resignation is worth a thousand smiles - published in The Observer, August 31, 2003
- Why Tony went to war - published in The Observer, October 5, 2003
- Let's make infants pay for their schooling - published in The Independent, January 27, 2004
- Suits you, sir – but can we suggest something warmer? - published in The Independent, February 1, 2004
- Tony really must try harder - published in The Guardian, April 14, 2004
- Invade Iraq? It's a no brainer - published in The Guardian, April 19, 2004
- The war of the words - published in The Guardian, April 30, 2004
- This week - published in The Guardian, May 22, 2004
- This won't hurt much - published in The Guardian, June 16, 2004
- In Iraq, it's already July 9th - published in The Guardian, July 7, 2004
- George, God here… - published in The Guardian, October 22, 2004
- A man-made tsunami - published in The Guardian, January 11, 2005
- Let them eat bombs - published in The Guardian, April 12, 2005
- Vote Draino - published in The Guardian, May 5, 2005
- Comedy of terror - published in The Guardian, December 29, 2005
- God: I've lost faith in Blair - published in The Guardian, March 8, 2006
- They have made a killing - published in The Guardian, 6 January 2007
- Call that humiliation? - published in The Guardian, March 31, 2007.
- Saved by the bomb - published in The Guardian, May 5, 2007
- A true land of opportunity - published in the Guardian, June 12, 2007
- A president transformed - published in the Guardian, July 7, 2007
Trivia
- An asteroid, 9622 Terryjones, is named in his honour. When asked during a webchat if this was the greatest honour he has received, Jones replied, "I didn't realise it was an honour to have a barren lump of rock named after one."
Further reading
- Wilmut, Roger (1980). From Fringe to Flying Circus: Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy, 1960-1980. London: Eyre Methuen. ISBN 0-413-46950-6.
References
- ^ Python legend battles cancer. The Daily Mirror. Retrieved on 2006-10-21.
- ^ Python op. success. The Daily Mirror. Retrieved on 2006-11-05.
External links
- Terry Jones.net – Semi-official fan site
- Totally Terry
- July 10, 2006 webchat transcript at Douglas Adams Continuum
- Terry Jones at the Internet Movie Database
- Terry Jones at the BBC Guide to Comedy
- Terry Jones at the Comedy Zone
- MP3 audio interview with Jones from The Sound of Young America public radio program and podcast
- Text interview with Jones from Wisconsin Public Television. Jones talks about Monty Python's legacy and his more current work.
| Twice a Fortnight |
|---|
| Graeme Garden — Terry Jones — Jonathan Lynn — Bill Oddie — Michael Palin |
| Do Not Adjust Your Set |
|
|
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jones, Terry Graham Parry |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Jones, Terry |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | British comedian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1 February 1942 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Colwyn Bay, Wales |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
