“An Evening with Warwick Davis” called a “triumph”

Last Thursday, Warwick Davis put on An Evening with Warwick Davis for audiences in Grantham, UK. The evening, which was put on in order to raise money for two charities, St. Barnabas Hospice (in Grantham) and Little People UK, saw Warwick tell stories about his life and career. Graham Newton, who reviewed the show, writes,

Warwick is a keen film maker himself and gave his Grantham audience an exclusive look at the home movie he made when he took on his first film role as an Ewok in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Warwick showed us an incredible film he made at Elstree Studios in which the stars – Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher – all play along for him in his own small movie.

Warwick continued to take us through his career reading passages from his autobiography and showing more fascinating clips, including another self-made film of him making the movie Willow with Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley in the 1980s.

Of course, there was also a serious side to the evening:

There were laughs aplenty, but Warwick was also keen to move in a more serious direction when talking about the condition he was born with, which caused his dwarfism. He told us about his son who died after just nine days and about his wife and son and daughter, who were also born with conditions causing dwarfism but who now lead fulfilling lives.

While a serious subject, Warwick will always look at the funny side of his diminutive size and showed us a clip from the series he made with Ricky Gervais called Life’s Too Short, in which he has a spy hole put in his front door only to realise he can’t see anybody’s face through it.

Warwick also talked about his talk show ambitions:

Warwick said it was an ambition of his to have his own talk show. He had promised to bring along a big star to interview on the stage, but they were not able to be there, so he persuaded a member of the audience to go on stage and sit on his couch to be interviewed. And so Peter Kaye became Warwick’s first guest. A familiar name, but this guest was not the comedian but an IT manager and ballroom dance enthusiast. This part of the show could have fallen flat on its face, but Warwick took the mickey, and Peter played along to keep the audience amused.

Read the full review here. In total, the evening raised around £2,700 for the two charities. It sounds like a wonderfully entertaining – and very successful – evening!