ACCORDING to the original JRR Tolkien story there is one ring to rule them all.

Well, this may be true in fantasyland but it was certainly not true when Charles Ross’ One Man Lord of the Rings show came to Dartford.

After performing to hundreds of thousands of people in 300 cities spread across four continents he encountered the one person any mention of the ring could not silence.

He encountered a woman who ate pastrami from a packet while watching the warm-up act and then spent the first third of the show texting rather than watching.

When asked why she did this, she explained she was being paid to be there because she was looking after two adults with learning difficulties.

I do not think her saying she did not understand much of what was going on placated him at all and it was not surprising when she left shortly into his version of the second book/ film.

In some respects she did have a small point because the show is not one for casual observers of the trilogy.

This is especially so in the first third of the show where there seemed to be even more back story and wandering about than in the film (which is strange considering on stage it is 20 minutes rather than the 178 of the celluloid version) and much of this was lost on me.

The second section fared slightly better as my memories of queuing up three hours in advance on a cold winter’s day to see The Two Towers at the Uptown cinema in Washington DC meant it had stuck in my memory a lot more.

Expertly acting out the third part of the trilogy, Charles managed to bring a cast of thousands from the battle sequences into just one man.

This final section really showed his brilliance at interpreting the action of the Peter Jackson films and putting them on the stage.

But although it was clever, there were too many in-jokes intended for people who have watched the film every day of their lives.

When it was laugh out loud funny rather than just amusing was when he strayed away from the plot and brought in other cultural references and questions.

These were few and far between though and instead most of the jokes came from his portrayal of Gandalf and Gollum.

Charles Ross has clearly worked very hard to bring the show to the stage and his argument with the texter woman shows how passionate he is about the production.

But I feel unable to be as passionate about the show as he is because I feel it is something which is only truly accessible to die hard fans.