Spencer Jones | |
---|---|
Medium | Television, stage |
Nationality | English |
Genres | Character comedy, physical comedy, prop comedy |
Notable works and roles |
Big Babies Upstart Crow |
Website | thespencerjones |
Spencer Jones is an English actor, comedian and writer. Jones has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and around the UK with his one-man show. He was co-creator and co-star of the CBBC comedy Big Babies, and has a regular role in the sitcom Upstart Crow.
Jones co-created with Jon Riche and co-starred in Big Babies for CBBC in 2010. The series was nominated for the BAFTA award for best children's comedy that year. In 2011 he appeared in the play Wedding Band at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Jones first performed his own show at the Edinburgh Fringe in Bob Slayer's Bookshop in 2014, performing as his character, The Herbert. In 2015 he came joint second (with Jenny Collier) in the New Act of the Year final. He won the Comedian's Choice award (also known as The Barry Award) for both "best show" and "best performer" the same year for his Edinburgh, The Herbert In Proper Job at Heroes of Fringe venue, TheHive.
In 2015 Jones wrote and starred in the comedy short Spencer Jones's Christmas for Sky TV's on demand service, which won the 2016 Broadcast Digital Award for Best Scripted Online Short. Jones performed his comedy act on British television for the first time in Live from the BBC, which was broadcast on BBC Two in March 2016. In 2016 he was nominated for "breakthrough act" and "music and variety award" in the Chortle Awards. However, these categories were won by Joseph Morpurgo and Pippa Evans, respectively.
Jones plays Shakespearean actor William Kempe in the sitcom Upstart Crow, which was broadcast on BBC Two beginning in May 2016. Jones plays the character as a parody of Ricky Gervais using his manner and speech patterns. He was asked to play the character this way to draw a comparison between Kempe, a popular comic actor of the 16th century, and Gervais in the present day; according to the show's producer Gareth Evans, "what we tried to show was that every era has its own maverick comedy guy who's slightly ahead of his time and is following the beat of a slightly different drum".