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Terry Jones
Born
February 1 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 in Colwyn Bay, Wales, on February 1, 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.

Jones was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, where he was head boy; he graduated in English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. Jones is married and has two children. On 21 October, 2006 it was reported in the British newspaper, The Daily Mirror, that Jones had been diagnosed with bowel cancer. Another article dated October 24, also by The Mirror, indicated that the exploratory surgery performed on Jones had good results. Previously, Jones had suffered from arthritis severe enough that in recent years he has used a cane in his documentaries.

Career History

Before Python

He appeared in Twice a Fortnight with Michael 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 Michael Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason (Jones speaks about this series during an interview which appears on both the Do Not Adjust Your Set DVD and the At Last the 1948 Show DVD). He wrote for The Frost Report and several other of David Frost's programmes on British television.

Monty Python

He was a member of Monty Python, the team of writers and performers that made Monty Python's Flying Circus. As a Python, Jones is remembered for his roles as middle-aged women and the bowler-hatted "man in the street". His character Mr. Creosote, from The Meaning of Life, has become practically iconic. One of Jones' major concerns was devising a fresh format for the Python TV shows, devising a stream-of-consciousness style which abandoned punchlines and instead encouraged the fluid movement of one sketch to another and the cross-referencing of jokes. This allowed the team's conceptual humour and one-line ideas room to realise their full potential, which conventional formulas would arguably compromise. Jones also objected to TV directors' use of speeded-up film, over-emphatic music, and static camera style.

Directorial work

Jones co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam, and two further Monty Python movies, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life. 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, for instance, in 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. He directed further films, including Erik the Viking (1989) and The Wind in the Willows (1996).

As an author

He co-wrote Ripping Yarns with Michael Palin, and wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth (1986). 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 popularly-held 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 condemning the Iraq war for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer. Many of these editorials were published in a paperback collection titled Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror.

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

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 (1998)
• 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

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

References

External links

• Terry Jones.net – Semi-official fan site
• Totally Terry
• July 10, 2006 webchat transcript at Douglas Adams Continuum
• 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

Twice a Fortnight
Tony Buffery — Graeme Garden — Terry Jones — Jonathan Lynn — Bill Oddie — Michael Palin
Do Not Adjust Your Set
Denise Coffey — Eric Idle — David Jason — Terry Jones — Michael Palin

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