Adolf
Pip Utton Theatre Company
McAulay Studio, Hong Kong Arts Centre Today-Sat, 9pm
Pip Utton knows what it's like to be disliked, even hated. While doing the one-man show that he also wrote, the actor has witnessed reactions by some spectators to his show so dramatic that other audience members have mistakenly thought they were staged. One time, in the middle of the play he has performed for more than a decade, a woman punched him, he recalls.
'Something takes the audience over, and we just step outside of the play for a minute and then you click back into it,' Utton (left) says.
The work is Adolf, a drama that sees the softly-spoken Englishman playing the German dictator, which returns to Hong Kong as part of Hong Kong Microfest. It was first staged here at the 1999 City Festival and was the festival's highest grossing show that year.
The show, written in 1997, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has won widespread critical acclaim. The production has since been staged throughout the world, including in Germany, where audiences were 'very supportive'.