“It was really, really beautiful,” said Lucas Jones, moments after his performance at the Saatchi Gallery for Chelsea Arts Festival – his first time sharing work with live instrumentation behind him. “I feel really grateful and honoured, and it’s that weird thing where you step out of the internet and you remember that everybody exists. You’re like, oh yeah, everyone who likes or comments or shares a thing… It sounds so silly, but it’s easy to minimise that down to just an online interaction rather than an entire human being who will come and see a show and cry with you. It’s so beautiful. I feel really honoured.”
“A Hundred Percent” Connection
Lucas Jones, who has built a devoted following on social media for his spoken word and poetry, said the live experience brought home the emotional reality of his work. “100%,” he said when asked if he felt that connection from the crowd. “Especially actually even in the Q&A section – even more than maybe the performance – because the performance is sort of tunnel vision about the performance maybe. But yeah, everyone’s had such beautiful questions and such thoughtful, nuanced understandings of my work, and it’s like, god, it’s really humbling to realise how much this all impacts reality. So, yeah, I feel really grateful.”
“I Think It’s Everything”
When asked what live culture means to him, Jones didn’t hesitate. “I think it’s everything. I think it’s everything,” he repeated. “I remember the first time I saw a play – I saw Blood Brothers or something, and I was on a school trip – and that to this day is the reason I still do this. Trying to chase that thing when they took their bows and we were in floods of tears or whatever… that thing is, it’s like the difference, it’s life or death to me. You know what I mean? I think it’s everything.”
On Vulnerability and Authenticity
Poetry, Jones said, is deeply personal – and sharing it means facing vulnerability head-on. “I think… through realising that if you don’t do it, you’re worse off,” he said. “If you don’t say what you mean, if you don’t express yourself authentically, if you hide away from your desire to express yourself, you’re actually far worse off. I think you’re ill doing that. I think you have to lean into that. Like, criticism is fine. You can handle criticism. You can’t handle not being authentic and not expressing what your purpose is in the world.”
“A Massive Honour”
Does Lucas Jones feel pressure or responsibility when he hears how many parents share his poems with their young sons? He paused, reflecting on the growing number of people who tell him his work has sparked conversations within their families. “I’m starting to feel it more and more in these interactions,” he said. “The more I’m hearing this, I’m like, I guess I really should be really careful. But I think it’s… I mean, it’s a beautiful honour. There’s no greater honour than getting to hear people like yourself or people in the audience today saying that the words I’ve been writing have been helping them communicate with their children more viscerally, and like giving them some sort of maybe a pathway to check that they’re doing something right.
“I can’t claim to take credit for having that knowledge. I don’t think I do. But wherever these poems come from, wherever it is, it seems to be helping people in a really positive way. So for that, I’m really grateful. And the responsibility is a massive honour. Bit scary, bit scary, but also a massive honour.”
Lucas Jones’s humility, honesty and charm summed up the mood at the Saatchi Gallery: open, reflective, and full of quiet power. For an artist known for bridging the digital and the deeply personal, the leap to a live stage was more than a milestone – it was a reminder, as he said himself, that “it’s everything.”
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