One Man Lord of the Rings

To conceive of playing before a live audience multiple characters who must converse and journey together, rescue one another from danger, and engage in mortal physical and magical combat takes a special kind of imagination.  And it takes a special kind of actor to succeed in maintaining such mayhem for the length and breadth of the Lord of the Rings epic.  Fortunately for us, Charles Ross is one such.  Fortunately too, Ross managed to compress the epic tale's years into a single hour or so of acting, interspersing clever off-the-cuff responses to the audience and preceding an enlightening description of the origins of the show in Ross's earlier touring show, One Man Star Wars Trilogy.

Unhappily, an odd combination of speed, accent, and audio asymmetry toward the theatre's sides put a good deal of dialogue beyond comprehension for those seated at the theatre's edges.  But, of the dialogue that was discernible, Ross's conception of what really occurred in Lord of the Rings goes a step beyond clever, providing not only genuine tension but plenty of laughs.  And the laughs weren't cheapened by his few references to other productions, products, and personalities.

I highly recommend the show.  To get the most from the performance, though, refresh your memory of the tale, seeing the film trilogy or reading the books, before coming along to Ross's rendition of it; you'll appreciate far more of its clever humour than you will if you find many of the events unfamiliar.

—John P. Harvey

Image: Charles Ross, in One Man Lord of the Rings.