It Wasn't Me, It Was Bennett Arron - New End
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
WRITTEN and performed by Bennett Arron, It Wasn’t Me, It Was Bennett Arron runs at Hampstead’s New End Theatre from Saturday, February 27 to Monday, March 15, 2010 – on Saturday, Sunday and Monday only.
Comedian Bennett Arron was in serious debt. He owed thousands of pounds to mobile phone companies, catalogues and department stores. Only it wasn’t him. Bennett was a victim of Identity Theft, the fastest growing crime in the UK, which affects 1 in 10 of us.
Arron talks about his experience and explores with humour and pathos the devastating repercussions of this so called ‘Victimless Crime.’ In Arron’s own case, he lost everything and he and his pregnant wife became penniless and homeless.
The show, described as a disturbingly true yet funny account of what it’s like to have your identity stolen, was critically acclaimed at the Edinburgh Festival and led to Arron being asked to direct and present a Documentary for Channel 4.
The Documentary, which was shortlisted for a BAFTA, showed through a series of stunts, how easy the crime of ID Theft is to carry out. This point was proven even further when Arron stole the identity of the then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke – and was subsequently arrested in a dawn raid!
A past winner of the TAPS Comedy Writer of the Year Award and the BBC Wales New Writer’s award, Arron has written for many comedy programmes, including The 11 O’Clock Show; Commercial Breakdown; the BAFTA winning V Graham Norton; Genie in The House, the highest-rated children’s sitcom on Nickelodeon; and the BBC’s BAFTA winning Slammer.
On television, he has performed in Not Tonight With John Sergeant, Glee Time (in which he hosted a series of six stand-up comedy shows) and Large (a satirical sketch show for the BBC). And as an actor, he has appeared in the film Dead Long Enough alongside Michael Sheen.
Tickets: £14, £12 concessions.
Times: Saturdays at 9.30pm, Sundays and Mondays at 7.30pm.
For more information call the box office on 0870 033 2733 or visit www.newendtheatre.co.uk
Also at New End Theatre: Rites of Privacy, Unveiling Hagar and Modelling Spitfires.