Hoipolloi Brings Two Shows, THE DUKE and ME & ROBIN HOOD to HOME Manchester

After successful UK and international tours taking in a host of high-profile London venues including the Barbican and the Royal Court, and a Scotsman Fringe First Award-winning run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Shôn Dale-Jones, Artistic Director of Hoipolloi Theatre, performs two shows at HOME, The Duke (Wed 6/Thu 7 June) and Me & Robin Hood (Fri 8/Sat 9 June).

Funny, poignant and playful, The Duke weaves together the tragi-comic fate of a family heirloom - a porcelain figure of The Duke of Wellington, the quandary of a scriptwriter stretching his integrity, and an unfolding disaster as thousands of children flee their homes.

Blending fantasy and reality, The Duke, which was recently commissioned as a radio play for BBC Radio 4, has raised over £47,000 for child refugees via Save The Children's Emergency Fund, and gently challenges our priorities in a world full of crisis.

The Duke is followed by two performances of Me & Robin Hood, in which Dale-Jones examines the inequality that exists in society through his relationship with his best fictional friend, and truly legendary hero, the Prince of Thieves himself.

Dale-Jones first encountered Robin Hood as a seven-year-old boy in November 1975 through the BBC mini-series The Legend of Robin Hood. Forty years on, Shôn and Robin look again at a modern world that continues to separate the rich from the poor, leaving only extreme options open to those who want to level the playing field.

Through the eyes of the now adult Shôn and his ageless childhood friend, Me & Robin Hood asks us to reflect on the opportunities life has offered us, to question what society truly values, and encourages us to challenge and change the story of money.

As with The Duke, which captured the public's imagination with a combination of theatre and fundraising, Me & Robin Hood is supporting Street Child United World Cup 2018, a charity which uses the power of sport to change the way the world sees and treats street-connected children, raising visibility and giving a platform for their voices to be heard and for their lives to be changed.

To date Me & Robin Hood has raised over £20,000, seeing Hoipolloi's charity total surpass £67,000 for the two charities over the last two years.

"Me & Robin Hood is my response to how the growing gap between the rich and the poor is affecting the way the world is being shaped," says Dale-Jones.

"It's my attempt to encourage us to imagine the lives of those living without the opportunities 'we' have - 'we' being the liberal-minded, well-educated theatre-going public. It's my attempt to encourage 'us' to do something about it, because, as Noam Chomsky says, the growing gap between rich and poor isn't good for anyone in society."

The Duke is produced by Hoipolloi, PBJ Management, Theatre Royal Plymouth in association with The Pleasance Theatre Trust in aid of Save the Children's Emergency Appeal. Presented by Hugh Hughes with Sho?n Dale-Jones.

ME & ROBIN HOOD is a Hoipolloi & Royal Court co-production in association with the Pleasance Theatre Trust, PBJ Management, and Theatre Royal Plymouth, by Shôn Dale-Jones in collaboration with Hamish Pirie. Supporting Street Child United World Cup 2018.

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