My father, Desmond Jones, who has died aged 87, was a pioneer of contemporary bodily theatre. His faculty, the Desmond Jones Faculty of Mime and Bodily Theatre, was the longest operating of its variety within the UK.
Within the mid-Sixties, Desmond went to see Marcel Marceau, the mime famous person, carry out in London. Afterwards, he fought his method backstage and into Marceau’s dressing room to ask the place he may research mime. Marceau wrote a Parisian handle on a scrap of paper and the phrases “Go There”. He took the piece of paper and, in 1967, he went.
“There” was the mime instructor Étienne Decroux, who had taught Marceau. Desmond spent two years with this tempestuous genius finding out corporeal mime – a extremely disciplined strategy of utilizing the physique alone to inform tales.
Desmond was born in Cambridge, to Eileen (nee Gunning) and Bob Jones, a civil servant, and attended the Perse faculty within the metropolis. He took a level in Scandinavian research at Cambridge College, the primary of his household to go on to larger schooling. Becoming a member of the Footlights comedy group, he carried out with John Cleese and Peter Cook dinner. However Desmond by no means felt he may match their vocal dexterity – he appreciated bodily comedy.
Throughout the 1968 Paris riots he met Marion Angus. He described a typical date: sitting on a park bench, watching because the molotov cocktails rained down on police.
He returned to London in 1970, the yr that he and Marion married. He was the primary mime specialist to be invited to carry out on the Nationwide Theatre, and in 1979 he established his faculty in Shepherd’s Bush. His educating included Decroux’s approach, along with improvisation, clowning and even chimpanzee motion.
Desmond’s faculty rapidly developed a world popularity. An inspirational instructor with devoted college students, he inherited a few of Decroux’s uncompromising prospers. Courses started at 9am, and doorways closed at 9.01am. No latecomers.
A lot of his early college students labored on the Star Wars Trilogy, whereas Desmond himself turned a motion director of renown. He labored on the caveman film Quest for Hearth (1981), in addition to Greystoke (1984).
A passionate campaigner for bodily theatre on the Arts Council, Desmond believed British appearing needed to develop into extra attention-grabbing from the neck down. The varsity closed along with his retirement in 2004. He spent his remaining years residing with Parkinson’s illness, which took from him the bodily grace he had spent a lifetime mastering.
Desmond is survived by Marion, their youngsters, Lotte and me, their grandchildren, Willa and Bibi, and an older brother, Barry.
