Mercury | David Sharpe on Tichborne | March 18, 2025
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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.