Mercury | David Sharpe on Tichborne | March 18, 2025 - video Dailymotion

Mercury | David Sharpe on Tichborne | March 18, 2025

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm David Sharpe, I'm the writer of I Am Tichborne.

00:03This is a play about the Tichborne claimant, an incredible true story.

00:08But if you haven't heard about it before, don't worry, I've got a quick explainer for you.

00:12Imagine if one of the world's richest men suddenly went missing.

00:17This is Roger Tichborne.

00:19He's the heir to an enormous fortune in the UK,

00:22but he's lost at sea off the coast of South America in 1854.

00:27But then he turns up again, 11 years later, in Wagga Wagga, working as a butcher.

00:34And now he looks like this.

00:37I know, he doesn't look anything like him.

00:39He doesn't sound like him either.

00:41And he only remembers bits and pieces of Roger's life before the shipwreck.

00:46This doesn't stop him from travelling to the UK to meet Roger's grieving mother,

00:52the one person who might be able to identify him.

00:55And she takes one look at him and says, yes, you are my son.

01:02And so begins a long and bitter and highly theatrical battle for the Tichborne fortune.

01:10One in which the claimant becomes a sensation in Victorian London

01:14and a champion of the working class.

01:17But is he Roger Tichborne?

01:20Come to the play and decide for yourself.

01:23April 5 to 6 at Workshop Theatre.