Mark Grist tells Katherine MacAlister why giving up his career as a teacher to become an entertainer was the best decision ever

Trying to sum up Mark Grist is like trying to catch shrimps by hand, so I thought I’d let the rap poet introduce himself.

“Crumbs... well, I’m Mark. I’m an educator, poet, comedian and probably the world’s most unlikely battle rapper. I like to make work that’s exciting, entertaining and that makes people laugh, or think, or just enjoy poetry a little bit more than they thought they would. I create a lot of work online, which has led to me being called a ‘YouTube sensation’ (The Sun) and an ‘unlikely heartthrob’ (The Guardian). That last one is the one that cracks my friends up the most.”

Mark’s latest tour, coming to Didcot’s Cornerstone tomorrow night, is a far cry from his former incarnation as a teacher, something Mark still hasn’t got used to. “I’d been teaching for five years, and while I loved working with teenagers and doing stuff in the classroom, I was becoming more and more frustrated with other adults that I was with in the world of education. It was pretty much all I was writing about, to be honest, and I knew I had to do something about it.”

A chance meeting with a bloke called Mixy at a poetry gig changed everything. “You couldn’t help but notice Mixy because he leaned back while watching the act on stage and set his hoodie on fire with a candle. Someone ended up chucking Coke over him – it was hilarious. “I’d heard a lot about him, locally, and the whole thing with the candle made it pretty easy to go over and chat to him. That’s what got me started on the perilous road to hip hop and rap battling.”

Mark, 32, took a year out from his job to complete an MA in Creative Writing, and develop his writing when he came across one of the internet’s favourite MCs (Blizzard) and defeated him in a rap battle, the video going viral on YouTube, reaching over four million views.

“It totally changed my life to be honest. It turned into the craziest year of my life, people stopped me in pubs, shops or just at the bus stop, and I still get a lot of people asking if I’m ‘the rapping teacher’. I’ve also had a fair few people who want to get autographs, which is flattering, but I find it pretty weird, to be honest. And this national tour – which has all really come about because people saw me in that video – is what my show Rogue Teacher is all about – how a guy in a sensible, rewarding job made the dumbest (and somehow best) decision he ever made in his life.”

So what is it about Mark that has caught the public’s interest? “Good question – I’m not really what people expect when they picture a poet, and that’s something I like. My work is really a mixture of comedy, poetry and storytelling, that’s meant to be engaging and entertaining and hopefully will make you rethink poetry in some way.

“Because poetry as an artform can struggle to find it’s audience and, in the most part, it’s down to us poets. “A lot of poets write for their peers, for academic recognition or for appreciation from those who already buy poetry. That’s great and all, but I decided early on that I’d take the opposite route. My aim has always been to write poems for people who don’t like poetry. I guess that’s turning out to be successful because it’s a much larger demographic than those who do.”

Does he miss teaching though despite his newfound fame and fortune? “It’s very different to the routine of teaching, which I still miss so much. So I spend a lot of my time freaking out about the inconsistency of my job and hatching schemes to develop new projects and ideas. Aside from that, I have a puppy – a pug, called Boo, who I spend a lot of time with, and I love cooking. If I weren’t a poet, I’d definitely be happy as a chef. I find it really relaxing.”

So what next? “You’ll be seeing me on TV in the coming months. I’m also developing a new show – Dead Poets Deathmatch with Mixy. We’re looking to head up to Edinburgh this summer to spend a month basting ourselves in cider and anxiety. Come and check us out if you’re up there. I promise you, you’ve never seen a show like it.”

SEE IT!
Mark Grist’s show Rogue Teacher comes to Didcot’s Cornerstone tomorrow night.
Call the box office on 01235 515144 or see cornerstone-arts.org