Actor & stand-up comedian Omid Djalili is to return to one of his earliest stage creations ‘A Strange Bit of History’ in a four-performance run of the one-man play at the British Library, from Thursday 26th – Saturday 28th September 2019. Tickets are on general sale from today.
The storytelling piece of mystical experiences, astonishing claims, adventures and tragedies is set against the backdrop of tumultuous expectation for a Promised One in Persia 1844.
In this revival to mark the Bicentenary of the birth of the Prophet Founder of the Baha’i Faith, Omid portrays a rich diversity of characters, both tragic and comic. The yarn is spun by scholars and famous names of the day, alongside an Egyptian camel-driver, a chief executioner of Tehran, and a distressed modern-day poet, who rails against the ills of our current world, and grapples with questions about human existence.
A Strange Bit of History was first performed at the 1993 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the Spirit of the Fringe Award. Over the next four years it was performed 109 times in 10 different countries.
Of his motivations for bringing the play back at the British Library, Omid said, “How wonderful to be given the opportunity to revisit a project I did in my youth and bring it to the prestigious British Library 25 years later. To return to a project ostensibly older and wiser has made me scan poetry anthologies and meaningful quotes websites to say something meaningful about the passage of time. They say “each generation of youth casts the world anew”. Well, I didn’t do that by any stretch. With this revival however I have a chance to redress that. Because youth really is undeniably and unequivocally wasted on the young.”
Omid’s theatre credits include Fiddler On The Roof (Chichester) The Shawshank Redemption (Edinburgh), What the Butler Saw (Vaudeville Theatre) and Fagin in Oliver! (Theatre Royal Drury Lane). Television includes Going Forward, Lucky Man, Dickensian, two seasons of The Omid Djalili Show and on US network television, Whoopi, The Paul Reiser Show and his own HBO stand-up Special. Films include the Oscar winning Gladiator, the Oscar nominated Shaun the Sheep Movie, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, The Mummy, Sex and the City 2, The Infidel, Mr Nice, Grow Your Own, Over the Hedge, Casanova, Modigliani, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Calcium Kid, Anita & Me, Mean Machine and Spygame.
Tickets on General Sale from today HERE.
