Griffith Rhys JonesOBE (born 16 November 1953), often known and credited as Griff Rhys Jones, is a Welsh comedian, writer, actor, and television presenter. Rhys Jones starred in a number of television series with his comedy partner, Mel Smith. He and Smith came to national attention in the 1980s for their work in the BBC television comedy sketch shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones.
Rhys Jones was born on 16 November 1953 in Cardiff,[1] the son of Gwynneth Margaret (née Jones) and Elwyn Rhys Jones,[2] a medical doctor. His family moved due to his father's occupation to West Sussex when Rhys Jones was six months old.[3] Rhys Jones attended Conifers Primary School in Midhurst, West Sussex, before his family moved to Epping, Essex.[1] He attended a junior school in Epping, Essex, and the Brentwood School, also in Essex.[4][1]
After a short spell working as a petrol pump attendant, Rhys Jones gained a gap year job on the P&O ship Uganda, working for a company organising school trips. In his autobiography, Semi-Detached, he describes how he was charged with helping to look after 600 Canadian schoolgirls, followed by a similar number of younger Scottish schoolchildren, and refers to the experience as being like "St Trinians at sea".[5]
Rhys Jones filled in several minor roles in the first series of Not the Nine O'Clock News,[1] and was brought in as a regular cast member from the second series onwards,[1] replacing Chris Langham. Rhys Jones says that the reason he got the part was not due to his appearance in the initial shows, or his talent, but because producer John Lloyd was dating his sister at the time. Rhys Jones became a regular from the commissioned second series.
In January 2012, Rhys Jones returned to BBC sketch comedy The Ones[2] alongside the likes of Hugh Bonneville, Tom Hollander and Larry Lamb, for one of a three-episode series in which comedy legends take to the stage for a mix of stand-up and sketches.[2][8]
Smith and Rhys Jones were reunited in March 2005, for a Comic Relief sketch,.[1] which led to a revival of their previous television series in The Smith and Jones Sketchbook.[1] Their final television appearance together was a Head To Head routine for the special of 2012 The One Griff Rhys-Jones.[1][2]
With Smith, he co-founded the television production company Talkback Productions, now part of RTL Group and later in 2005, he established the production company Modern Television.[10] When Smith died in the summer of 2013, Rhys Jones wrote a piece about his comedy partner in the Radio Times, saying it was "sheer bliss" to perform with Smith.[11]
In 2005, Rhys Jones created his own production company Modern Television,[12] which has since made several productions with Rhys Jones as presenter and executive producer.[13]
Rhys Jones has developed a career as a television presenter, beginning as the co-host on several Comic Relief programmes. He presented Bookworm from 1994 to 2000, was the presenter of the BBC's Restoration programme and has undertaken fundraising work for the Hackney Empire theatre conservation project.[2]
In later adventures, the three men took to the Irish Canals and Rivers on a trip from Dublin to Limerick (Dara's Greyhound Snip Nua also tagged along for the trip), went to Scotland, and sailed along the Balkan coast ending up in Venice for a gondola race.[16] His documentary series Mountain, for which he climbed 15 British peaks during 2006,[16] was broadcast on BBC One 29 July–26 August 2007. Rhys Jones visited his mother's home town in Ferndale, Rhondda Cynon Taf for an episode of the BBC One series Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 20 September 2007. In the episode, he detailed early memories and stories of his grandparents' fruit and vegetable shop on the high street and his mother's childhood concert performances at Trerhondda Chapel.[16] He presented a documentary series with 5 episodes A Pembrokeshire Farm which was broadcast on BBC4 in July/August 2007.[16] Two years later he presented another 5 episode documentary series Return to a Pembrokeshire Farm which was broadcast on BBC4 in September/ October 2009. Both series concerned the renovation of a farm in Pembrokeshire which Rhys Jones had purchased intending to restore them.[16]
He presented a seasonal documentary, Charles Dickens and the Invention of Christmas, which was broadcast on 23 December 2007 on BBC One.[17] Rhys Jones fronted Greatest Cities of the World, which saw him visiting a different city each week. The first series, featuring London, New York City and Paris, aired on primetime ITV in October 2008. A second series featuring Rome, Sydney and Hong Kong was broadcast in April and May 2010.[16] Rhys Jones has created and presented programmes about Arthur Ransome,[18]Thomas Hardy,[19]John Betjeman[20] and Rudyard Kipling.[21]
During July to August 2009, Rhys Jones presented the BBC programme Rivers with Griff Rhys Jones.[22] which featured on the cover of Radio Times.[23]
In 2010, Rhys Jones presented a programme called The Prince's Welsh Village that featured Prince Charles.[24]
In 2011, he presented the series Hidden Treasures of Art, which examined the art of Australia, India and Africa over the course of three episodes.[25]Britain's Lost Routes with Griff Rhys Jones[26] was broadcast on BBC One from 30 May to 20 June 2012. The show looked at lesser-known routes around Great Britain. On 29 April 2012,[16] Rhys Jones guest presented an episode of Perspectives on ITV, his chosen subject being The Wind in the Willows.[16]
In 2013, Rhys Jones presented a documentary about his father's service as a medical officer with the Gold Coast Regiment and the war in Burma,[27]Burma, My Father and the Forgotten Army, was broadcast on BBC Two on 7 July.[28]
In 2014, Rhys Jones fronted an eight-part ITV documentary series entitled A Great Welsh Adventure with Griff Rhys Jones.[29]
From 10 April 2015, he introduced a five-part documentary series for ITV, Slow Train Through Africa, taking in life on and off trains from Morocco to South Africa, by way of Algeria, Tunisia, Kenya and Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia.[30]
In December 2015, it was announced that Rhys Jones would present Griff's Great Britain, a new eight-part series for ITV.[31]
In August 2022, Rhys Jones presented Griff's Canadian Adventure a new 6-part series for Channel 4, where he travelled across Canada from Newfoundland to British Columbia.[32]
Writing
Rhys Jones has written or co-written many of the programmes he has appeared in, and many spin-off books. In 2002, he began writing a book called To the Baltic with Bob, describing his adventures on the high seas with his sailing friend Bob, as they make their way to Saint Petersburg, port by port.[33]The book was published in 2003, with Rhys Jones saying of the experience: "As a child, you go out and play and you lose all track of time and space. It's harder and harder to attain that blissful state of absorption as you get older. I did a six-month sailing trip to St Petersburg with some mates just to get it back."[34]
His early life has been captured in his autobiography, Semi-Detached, published in 2006 by Penguin Books. His book to accompany the BBC One series Mountain was published in July 2007.[35]
Rhys Jones in 2007
Other work
From 1999 to 2001, Rhys Jones featured in television adverts for the Vauxhall range of cars, as a "boffin". In April 2001, he was dismissed by Vauxhall, after an embarrassing advert for the Vauxhall VX220.[36] He officially signed the deal in May 1999.[37]
Rhys Jones provided the voice-over for Brentwood School's 450th anniversary DVD, reading a script written by fellow Old Brentwoodian Jonathan Ruffle.[38]
Rhys Jones became President of The Victorian Society in February 2018, in succession to Asa Briggs, following a period as vice president from 2009,[39][40] and has participated in media campaigns for the society.[41] Since 2007, he has been a Vice-President of the River Stour Trust, a registered charity led by volunteers who are dedicated to the restoration and conservation of the River Stour Navigation for the benefit and enjoyment of the public.[16]
In June 2008, it was announced that Rhys Jones was to become the President of Civic Voice, the nationwide charity that campaigns for better places in the built and green environment.[42]
In August 2014, Rhys Jones was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.[43]
Personal life
Rhys Jones met his wife, Jo, a graphic designer, while working at the BBC. He described their first meeting by saying: "The day we met, I was semi-naked and she was throwing water over me." The couple have two children and live between homes in London (previously in Islington, now in a Grade I listed house in London's Fitzrovia in the West End) and Holbrook in Suffolk.[44][45] Rhys Jones owned Undina, the 45-foot (14m), fifty-year-old wooden sailing yacht which was used in Three Men in Another Boat; he spent £500,000 on her restoration and in 2013 stated she was for sale for £195,000, "probably less".[46]
Around 2011, he bought a 1948 57-foot (17m) wooden yacht, Argyll, which he races at regattas, including the Fastnet Race.[46][47] He and Jo are keen gardeners, and he discussed their extensive garden in an October 2015 episode of Gardeners' World, part of which was filmed there.[48]
A former heavy drinker, Rhys Jones is a teetotaller: "I don't drink so going to a party can become very tedious. By about 11 o'clock, everybody goes to another planet and you're not there with them, so I tend to avoid that sort of thing."[44] He started running as a leisure pursuit in his early forties. In 2008, he presented two programmes called Losing It which were shown on BBC Two, in which he discussed his own problems with anger management.[16]
An active conservationist, Rhys Jones is the president of Civic Voice, the national organisation representing Britain's civic societies. He also owns a small herd of alpacas.[49]
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Melvyn Kenneth Smith was an English comedian, actor and filmmaker. He worked on the sketch comedy shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones with his comedy partner, Griff Rhys Jones. Smith and Jones founded Talkback, which grew to be one of the United Kingdom's largest producers of television comedy and light entertainment programming.
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Alas Smith and Jones is a British comedy sketch television series starring comedy duo and namesake Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones that originally ran for four series and two Christmas specials on BBC2 from 1984 to 1988, and later as Smith and Jones for six series on BBC1 until 1998. A spin-off from Not the Nine O'Clock News, the show also had a brief run in the United States on A&E and PBS in the late 1980s, as well as on CBS in the early 1990s during their late-night block.
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Talkback is a British television production company established in 1981 by comedy duo Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones.
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Modern Television is a British production company based in Cardiff and London. It was founded in 2005 by Griff Rhys Jones and Simon Mansfield, who left in 2011. Since 2011 the Managing Director has been Sarah Broughton. Tom Hollander was cast to play Dylan Thomas in the companies first drama production, A Poet in New York with Griff Rhys Jones acting as executive producer on the feature-length drama directed by Aisling Walsh Awards: The company won a Fast Growth 50 Award in 2009 and again in 2010. In 2012 it was listed in Televisual magazine as one of the top 100 production companies in the United Kingdom. A Great Welsh Adventure with Griff Rhys Jones won 'Best Presenter' at the BAFTA Cymru Awards 2014. A Poet in New York won 'Best Actor' for Tom Hollander at the RTS Awards 2015 as well as 'Best Feature’ and 'Best Special and Visual Effects’ at the BAFTA Cymru Awards 2015. The drama was also nominated for ‘Best Drama’ at the Broadcast Press Guild Awards, BAFTAs, Broadcast Awards, Celtic Media Awards and Critics’ Choice Television Awards in America in 2015.
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