Norwich Arts Centre

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It takes a big man to fill the shoes of a larger-than-life legend like George Orson Welles. Clearly Christian McKay is a man with a passion to bring to the stage the complexities of a great film director, actor, writer and self-confessed 'Jack of all Entertainment'.

The tightly written sardonic script allowed actor and audience to share a unique journey.

“My name is Orson Welles, or is it?” We gradually discovered the man, the icon. He name-dropped across the early movie decades.

From magician to wonder kid director, to the first love that never died - Shakespeare - he slips between roles, insights and anecdotes.

The 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds that caused panic as listeners mistook drama for news, led to him being asked to issue a statement to confirm that Pearl Harbor was real.

In Citizen Kane, his masterpiece, we glimpse at bleak pleasure in ownership in a mausoleum of emptiness.

And from his inability to leave the Dames alone into his fat old age, he ate for the world. A final Falstaff brought us full circle. As the man said “life is not a film script, its out-takes. The secret is in the editing.”