Frank Gardner - Out There

Frank Gardner is coming to the Royal Hall on Thursday 6 May 2027, with his one-man show Out There. If you recognise the name, it's because he's the BBC's Security Correspondent, and this is him taking the stage to tell his own story rather than reporting someone else's.

Gardner didn't start in journalism; he was a City banker who speaks fluent Arabic, which led him to become the network's first full-time Gulf correspondent. From there, the reporting took him to some pretty disparate corners of the world: kayaking among icebergs in Antarctica, meeting mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and filming a raid on a Colombian jungle drug lab on his phone. It's a career that's spent a lot of time far from the studio.

But the show centres on a specific day in 2004. While in Riyadh, Gardner was shot six times, and Out There retells the story of that day and the long road back, alongside the life that followed — including his spy novels and his ongoing reporting from the Middle East. A good deal of it is told through his own footage and photographs, so you'll see the places he's talking about rather than just hearing about them. The performance closes with a live audience Q&A, so there's a chance to ask him about any of it directly.

It's recommended for ages 14 and over. The show starts at 7:30pm and runs for 115 minutes, with tickets priced from £37.00 to £91.00.