Name Graham Roos Education University of Buckingham | Role Producer Books Rave: Poems 1990-1997 | |
Graham Roos in conversation with Melanie Spanswick
Graham Roos FRSA (born 1966, Sheffield, UK) is a producer, writer and performer. His work has appeared in print, on stage, television and radio. Since 2011 he has been appointed the first Creative Artist in Residence at Buckingham University.
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Career
Roos was awarded the Art Exhibition to Rugby School and subsequently attended the Great Eastern Stage School before taking his first degree at Buckingham University, where he wrote and directed his first play.
After a brief period working for the British Museum and lecturing in media, Roos devoted himself full-time to writing and performing poetry, joining British poet Victoria Moseley's group, Paradigm Poets, in 1997. During this period he worked alongside budding rock star Pete Doherty, who recorded his time with Roos and Paradigm Poets in his work The Books of Albion: The Collected Writings of Peter Doherty. In 2005 Roos appeared in Max Carlish's Rockumentary Stalking Pete Doherty for Channel 4 recalling this time. From the late 1990s onwards Roos has performed at venues around London, including the Southwark Playhouse, Riverside Studios, The Chelsea Arts Club, The Groucho Club, the ICA, The Cafe de Paris – where he appeared with Boy George in a celebration of the life of Marc Bolan – and St John's, Smith Square.
In Summer 2008 he joined Dominic Muldowney as project poet in the Royal Opera House project Opera Genesis. This later combined with the London Sinfonietta's project the Art of News which Roos curated with Muldowney at King's Place in January 2009. For this Roos wrote the libretto to Songs of the Zeitgeist sung by Daniel Evans. This project aimed to take newspaper headlines and transpose them into songs whilst keeping a journalistic feel without turning these headlines directly into poetry. The event attracted mixed reviews, notably from Richard Morrison at The Times. This three-night event also saw the premiere at King's Place of Roos's verse play Apocalypse Calypso with Fenella Fielding, Janet Suzman, Roos and Benedict Hopper. Suzman has said of Roos "Graham Roos has a way with words; his poetry is vivid, catchy and thought-provoking. He leads the generation of young troubadours responding with verve to the world we have dumped on them."
In 2009 Roos presented a semi-staged reading of a new play Son of Many Fathers, with Derek Jacobi in the lead, directed by Di Trevis at the European School of Young Performers, and in 2010 showcased a performance of his most recent play Her Holiness the Pope at LAMDA. Sir Derek has written of his work "Graham Roos writes with a directness and urgency embracing both intellectual and emotional clarity. His characters are authentic and speak with individuality. He has an acute ear for pithy dialogue which is catchy, true, eminently 'sayable' with a fine mix of laughter and tears."
Discography
Cine-poems
Shorts