Redbridge Stage Company

John Merrick’s true story is that of a man whose body is hideously deformed, but within is a remarkably sensitive and intelligent being. Nevertheless he is exploited by Victorian society and even the philanthropy that purports to protect him. At first loathed and feared in equal measure he is befriended by an ambitious surgeon who looks after him in his last few years finding him a home in a London hospital. Here his presence is shrewdly used for fund raising. Merrick is introduced to high society, becoming dependent on the success his deformity brings him.