FOLLOWING the success of 2016 Fringe First award winning The Duke, Hoipolloi’s Shôn Dale-Jones returns with the second in a series of solo shows exploring charity and art.

Me and Robin Hood comes to Theatre Royal Plymouth on Tuesday September 26 and runs to Saturday, October 7. It examines the inequality that exists in society through Shôn’s relationship with his best fictional friend (and truly legendary hero), the Prince of Thieves himself.

Shôn 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. 40 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 and Robin Hood asks us to reflect on the opportunities life has offered us, to question what society truly values and encourage 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 and Robin Hood will employ a unique ticketing system that encourages audiences to donate to charity.

This year, audiences will buy a ticket for £5 or £10 and be asked to bring cash to the show.

Me and 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.

Last year, Hoipolloi collected over £36,500 for the Save the Children Child Refugee Fund from audience donations via their Edinburgh show The Duke, which has toured extensively and will return to the Fringe this year.

Commenting on the project Shôn said: ‘Me and Robin Hood is my response to how the growing gap between the rich and the poor is effecting the way the world is being shaped. It’s my attempt to encourage us to imagine the lives of those living without the opportunities ‘we’ have – ‘we’, the liberal-minded, well-educated theatre-going public.

‘The show playfully challenges our relationship with the banks and flirts with the romantic idea of becoming a radical revolutionary that can change the world. It gives audiences the chance to offer an opportunity to a child living on the streets to go to Street Child United’s 2018 World Cup and start to change their life.’

Shôn Dale-Jones is the man behind Edinburgh’s favourite Welsh character Hugh Hughes and the winner of two Fringe Firsts, for Story of A Rabbit (2007) and for The Duke (2016).

Hoipolloi was established in 1993 by Dale-Jones and Stefanie Mueller to make work that is funny, imaginative and touching, connecting with audiences all over the world on various platforms.

The company’s work reaches out beyond the stage, and engages audiences directly through a mixture of live performance and online digital content.

Me and Robin Hood is a Hoipolloi and Royal Court Theatre Productions co-production in association with Theatre Royal Plymouth.