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Richard Tyrone Jones's Big Heart

Richard Tyrone Jones

Paul Birtill

Nigel Barrett

Katie Bonna

Lobo Chan

Nina Ludovica Smith

Richard Kidd

Nick Walker

Richard Tyrone Jones's Big Heart: Episode 1: It's Your Funeral

Comedy

It's Your Funeral

Episode 1

Episode 1: It's Your Funeral

BBC Radio 4 - Richard Tyrone Jones's Big Heart, It's Your Funeral

Richard Tyrone Jones relives his perilous journey to the operating table and back again.

Richard Tyrone Jones relives his perilous journey from operating table and back again, after he gets heart failure on his 30th birthday.

Richard Tyrone Jones - healthy, gym-going poet, man about town and aspirant womaniser - finds himself, on his 30th birthday, stricken by an unexpected present: heart failure. Confined to hospital with a dilated, literally-big heart, stuck on drugs and drips and forced to cope with curious medical procedures and even curiouser fellow patients, will he die, or will he be doomed to life in a mobility scooter at home with his parents in Dudley?

Or maybe he can pull through with the help of poetry, cod philosophy, and friends - nihilistic Sophia, who tries to cheer his spirits with books by Houellebecq and Lovecraft, and his dour Welsh publisher / solicitor Jacob, who is in charge of his will but might actually sell more books if he dies. And will having a Big Heart shrink his romantic possibilities?

Half-way between a sitcom and real-life storytelling, and based on Richard's Wellcome Trust supported solo show which toured in 2012, each episode illuminates a different aspect of the experience of illness and facing your own mortality with a sense of humour.

Richard Tyrone Jones is a poet, writer and director of 'Utter!" spoken word, and director of spoken word at the Edinburgh Festival Free Fringe. 

Written by Richard Tyrone Jones
With additional material by Paul Birtill

Produced by Nick Walker
A Top Dog production for BBC Radio 4.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Jones illuminates the experience of facing a life-threatening medical condition

In a mix of sitcom and real-life storytelling, Jones illuminates the experience of facing a life-threatening medical condition

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