Richard Tyrone Jones was a healthy regular gym user approaching his 30th birthday when he got an unexpected present: heart failure.

Having battled back to almost full health, he has turned his near-death experiences into a show which he describes as “a unique prescription of cardiomyopoetry, animation and anecdosage”.

Called Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart, it comes to Bradford’s Theatre In The Mill this month following a month-long residency at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a sell-out London run.

Written, produced and performed by Richard, and based on his experiences, the spoken word show is described as “touching yet funny, gruesome yet poetic, informative yet uplifting”, blending a narrative and accessible science.

Richard expands on the details of his near-death from dilated cardiomyopathy (heart failure), atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat) and atrial thrombosis (blood clot in the heart), and on his convoluted convalescence and everyday life with a condition that will almost certainly kill him.

With a relatively healthy lifestyle, he wouldn’t have found his way onto anyone’s at-risk list for cardiomyopathy. Telling the story of his “out of the blue” massive heart failure aged just 30, Richard aims to provoke thought, tickle a few ribs, and get across the warning to look after our hearts.

The show is directed by Anthony Shrubsall, with visuals from five-star animators patternfightperformance and ‘surgical support’ from some of the UK’s finest spoken word artists.

Iain Bloomfield, artistic director of Theatre In The Mill, says: “I was bowled over by an excerpt of this piece at a WordLife event last year and really wanted to see more. Richard takes us on a journey that asks us to consider our own mortality, and through that the lives that we currently live, with humour and compassion. A bizarrely joyful show.”

The performance in Bradford will feature a special poetry competition, in which entrants are invited to perform a poem or a piece of writing on a biomedical theme, ideally around three minutes long. The winner will receive £50 and an invitation to perform a paid gig in London.

Local poets including Joseph C Kriss provide support and the show is supported by the Wellcome Trust, the British Heart Foundation and the Cardiomyopathy Association Richard is a poet and writer and founder of spoken word club night Utter! which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2012. His new book Big Heart (And Other Sickness) was recently published.

His poetry ranges from the silly to the sublime, touching on subjects as diverse as evolution, life, death, kittens and dating, always with a strong vein of ironic humour.

l Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart is at Theatre In The Mill on Friday, January 25. Ring (01274) 233 200 for tickets.

For more about Richard visit richardtyronejones.com.