Theatre interview: Shôn Dale-Jones on touring shows The Duke and Me and Robin Hood

There’s a phrase that crops up often at the moment, around the echoing halls of social media; “check your privilege”, it says, to anyone living a fairly comfortable western life, who might be tempted to feel hard done by. If there’s one person in that category who never seems to need reminding of his privilege, though, it’s the writer and performer Shôn Dale-Jones, whose remarkable monologue The Duke appears next week at the Traverse Theatre, after a Scotsman Fringe First-winning run at the Edinburgh Festival of 2016. The Duke tells the semi-autobiographical tale of Shôn, his mum, and their complex relationship with a china figure of the Duke of Wellington that his late Dad bought, cherished, and kept in a shoe-box under the bed; these days, The Duke also has a touring companion in the shape of Shôn’s 2017 show Me And Robin Hood, which he performs in Perth this weekend.