Shôn Dale-Jones in The Duke. Picture: Jaimie Gramston
SHON Dale-Jones heads to Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight with a re-working of his Edinburgh Fringe First award-winning, fund-raising one-man show, The Duke.
Along with his show about inequality, privilege and poverty, Me And Robin Hood, The Duke has raised more than £100,000 for charities supporting children refugees and street-connected children. Proceeds from his latest tour will go to Save The Children’s Emergency Fund.
Exploring kindness, generosity and the value of what we do, 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.
Bristol writer-performer Shôn blends theatre, comedy and storytelling with fantasy and reality to gently challenge our priorities in a world full of crisis in a 60-minute play premiered in 2016 in response to the refugee crisis that exploded following the ‘Syrian Conflict’.
The Duke was re-written and revived last year in response to the ever-evolving and worsening refugee crisis following more conflicts and disasters around the world.
“Every show I make is made for a particular reason,” says Shôn. “I made The Duke in 2016 because I wanted to find a way of doing something practical about ‘the refugee crisis’.
“I couldn’t watch more images of the terrifying reality that these people are suffering without contributing towards the relief effort. I’m not a doctor or an engineer – I’m a writer/performer – and so I decided I could write a show which connects us to the crisis and raise money to support Save The Children’s refugee and crisis work.
“Now, in 2025, I’ve returned to The Duke because ‘the refugee crisis’ has become more extreme and heavily politicised. It feels more important than ever to remind each other that we are talking about people. People like us. It might be complicated to find solutions to the crisis but it’s straightforward to practise empathy for innocent people whose lives are being torn apart.”
Shôn continues:“We feel passionately about what the show is aiming to achieve: to make audiences wonder about the value of art at a time when the world is in turmoil and to reach out and empathise with the refugee crisis.
“We want to increase our empathy for people whose lives have been torn apart and forced them to seek refuge and sanctuary away from home. The show is a vehicle for raising money and awareness. It’s a conduit to an urgent and immediate need and we hope our audiences join us in empathising and raising money to support this cause.”
How did The Duke first emerge? “What happened was I’d spent over a year developing a TV show and at the end I was told I had a couple of months to wait for it to be confirmed,” recalls Shôn.
“I hadn’t expected that, so I thought it would be useful to use those months to write a play, and what was going on at that time was our TV screens were being bombarded with images of the Syrian crisis. We were seeing images of the refugee camps for the first time.
“My father had died, my mother was lonely, and I was concerned about whether my TV proposal would be accepted, so I wrote a solo show that intertwined all those narratives.
“The Duke connects me and my relationship with my mother
The Duke cooconnectsmeandmyrelationshipwithmymother,andmyworkinglifeasawriter,tothelifeofarefugeewhoisherewithhertwoyoungdaughtersthatdon’tknowwhethertheirfatherisaliveordead.TheDukeconnectsustotherefugeecrisisbysharingourcommonhumanityandthelovingbondthatexistsbetweenchildren,mothersandfathers.
What happened next? “The TV project never materialised, so I thought, ‘I’ll go back into theatre’ and set up The Duke as a fund-raising show for Save The Children, where I would give theatres the show and rather than paying for their tickets, audiences would give to the charity.
“I played the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016, then London, Norway and Australia, and the play got translated into Flemish, (Brazilian) Portuguese and Turkish, so there are now other versions being presented around the world.”
Shôn enthuses: “I thought, ‘there’s something in this’, and it’s rekindled my desire to work in theatre and engage with social and political issues. I then made the second show [Me And Robin Hood] for Street Child United, who put on a World Cup for children around the world, which was held a month before the World Cup.
“I went to Chennai in India and did some work directly with one of the homes out there and then I worked with a company in Belgium. I’m still making a lot of theatre but I’m also back in TV development now. I’m still optimistic but less naive.”
Assessing why The Duke has had such an impact, Shôn says: “I think it has an emotional sincerity to it. We’re concerned for our parents when they get older, and it’s also impossible for us not to get caught up in the narrative surrounding refugee camps, but then there is the question of how much do you focus on your professional development when you know there are other things needing your support.
“The whole idea of contributing, of helping others, is deeply embedded in my family. Both my grandmother and my mother were embedded in charity work. My grandmother worked for Oxfam when it was first set up; my mother has worked for all sorts of agencies: for the NSPCC, Samaritans and the Adoption UK charity.
“What I think I found when I started working with humanitarian relief projects was it was so different from the theatre world, and I suddenly found a different dimension to my theatre work, connecting my storytelling to things that were more meaningful.”
Summing up The Duke, he says: “The play connects me and my relationship with my mother, and my working life as a writer, to the life of a refugee who is here with her two young daughters that don’t know whether their father is alive or dead.
“The Duke connects us to the refugee crisis by sharing our common humanity and the loving bond that exists between children, mothers and fathers.”
From an initial expectation of raising maybe £4,000-£5,000 from the four-week Edinburgh Fringe run, Shôn’s charity donations have passed the £100,000 mark, even in straitened times when the average charity donation has gone down from £8 to £4. “I’ve resolved to keep sending the donations to the charities that work on the ground,” he says.
SDJ Productions presents Shôn Dale-Jones in The Duke, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight at 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk or by emailing boxoffice@41monkgate.co.uk.
Shôn Dale-Jones: back story
BORN in Llangefni on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales. Studied Drama & Film at University of East Anglia (1987-1990) and trained at Lecoq School in Paris (1990-1992) while making street theatre and performing stand-up.
Works as a writer, performer, director and producer, making work on stage, radio, screen and elsewhere. Created 29 theatre shows, six radio plays, several films and site-specific and outdoor work since 1994.
His work has toured to more than 20 countries, across six continents and been translated into seven languages. Partners have included BBC, Barbican, Royal Court, National Theatre Studios, National Theatre Wales and Sydney Opera House.
Previously founding director of Hoipolloi and Hugh Hughes Productions before launching SDJ Productions.
The Duke: back story
PERFORMED at venues across the world from Africa to Australia, at a host of London theatres, including the Royal Court, Barbican and Soho Theatre, and on UK tours.
Won Fringe First Award; highly commended in Sit Up and Act Awards; nominated for Prix Europa Award in Best European Radio Fiction category. Made into BBC Radio 4 play in 2018.
Revised show is touring throughout England and Wales this spring, asking audiences to continue to make a difference to the lives of refugees by inviting them to donate to Save The Children’s Emergency Fund after performances.