Omid Djalili revives his storytelling show after 25 years

Omid Djalili is to return to one of his earliest stage creations A Strange Bit Of History, at the British Library

The comedian first performed the storytelling show at the 1993 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the Spirit of the Fringe Award. Over the next four years, he performed it 109 times in 10 countries.

Created by Djalili’s wife, Annabel Knight, the play tells of mystical experiences, astonishing claims, adventures and tragedies against the backdrop of tumultuous expectation for a Promised One in Persia in 1844.

Now it is to be revived for four performances from  Thursday September 26 ^to Saturday 28 September 28.

The shows mark the bicentenary of the birth of Bahá’u'lláh, the prophet founder of the Baha’i faith, which Djalili follows, although the religious leader was actually born in November 1817.  

Djalili said:  ‘How wonderful to be given the opportunity to revisit a project I did in my youth and bring it to the prestigious British Library 25 years later. 

‘To return to a project ostensibly older and wiser has made me scan poetry anthologies and meaningful quotes websites to say something meaningful about the passage of time. 

‘They say "each generation of youth casts the world anew". Well, I didn’t do that by any stretch. With this revival however I have a chance to redress that. Because youth really is undeniably and unequivocally wasted on the young.’

Published: 5 Jun 2019