Preview Waiting for Gandalf at Durham Assembly

No Hobbits in this play, but an equally unexpected hero!

Waiting for Gandalf

Durham Assembly Rooms Theatre

Saturday 5^th May 2018

Written by Adrian Marks

Directed by Patrick Sandford

From an original production directed by Teresa Hagger

Over the past two years the enterprising and imaginative Brighton based charity Mankind has been establishing a reputation for presenting lively, provocative theatre at the Brighton Fringe: GROOMED (2016), BLOOMING and BETWEEN YOU AND ME (2017). This year the emphasis, despite the title of Adrian Marks’ play, moves far from Hobbits, onto the hidden hero inside all of us - however ordinary we may feel. Vulnerable, plucky….the hero emerges in ways startling, comic and profoundly human.

Meet Kevin Brook, self-confessed fanatic of all things 'Lord of the Rings'. On the evening before Gandalf is to sign copies of the brand new Movie Companion to 'The Two Towers', Kevin is first in the queue outside the bookshop, eagerly waiting.

But in the deep of the night the thrilling fantasy characters soon give way to the all too real people in his own memory - friends who don't understand him, family who never had time for him.

What's the real reason for his obsession with the kindly wizard? A disturbing truth is about to be revealed, and with it the chance for Kevin to find the way clear to a more optimistic future….. Will he seize the opportunity? Can we, watching, support him?

Adrian Marks’ wry and sensitive writing is matched by the gentle quirkiness of Chris Neville-Smith’s stage presence…. but is this a disguise for something infinitely more complex?

Maybe our whole idea of what it means to be male and heroic will be subtly, even inspiringly challenged!

“Dark-as-hell” (Fringe Guru)

***** (Albie Media)

**** (Broadway Baby)

On The  Web:

Twitter: @MankindCharity

Website: www.mkcharity.org

http://www.chrisnevillesmith.info/productions/gandalf.html

Tickets:

There will be a preview of Waiting for Gandalf at The Assembly Rooms, Durham on Saturday 5^th May at 7.30 p.m. Tickets are available on the door or online from the Assembly Rooms.

Waiting for Gandalf will be at Sweet Werks, (Brighton Fringe Venue 18), 14 - 20 May at 18:00 [75mins including after show Q&A]. Tickets: £8.00 / £6.00.

Brighton Fringe Web Link: http://www.brightonfringe.org/whats-on/waiting-for-gandalf-114458/

Sweet Venues Web Link: https://sw.tickets.red61.com/performances.php?eventId=18:1704