Rodreguez King-Dorset: I am the Greatest (Edinburgh Preview)

On 26th June 2025, at Blackmoor Psychiatric hospital, sits Jake ‘Mental’ Hughes, a fifty-something-year-old black man from Lancashire. He’s been restrained and detained in a psychiatric hospital since sparring with ‘imaginary’ opponents in the middle of the Chippenham high-street to the ‘voice’ of Muhammad Ali when he was in his 20s. Now, an ageing Jake takes on the world over his right to live life without psychotic drugs. In this solo 60 minute drama, critically acclaimed actor and director Rodreguez King-Dorset illuminates the anger, rage and sometimes indifference felt towards the mental health system that we have in place today. Both whimsical and dark, he brings to the stage a twilight zone of bizarre realities between Jake’s life in solitary and his ‘real’ Muhammad Ali persona. This Edinburgh Preview is a bold and moving telling of a story that spans decades and is as relevant today as it’s ever been.