By Ali Ikram
The one-hander is one of the most challenging acts in theatre - a single performer holding the attention of the audience for the whole show.
What if the main man was a former boxing champion with a speech impediment?
A boxer and his money are soon parted, so with his $400 million fortune gone, Mike Tyson, the “baddest” man on the planet, is treading the boards.
"I know many of you are wondering ‘what is Mike going to do on stage tonight’,” director Spike Lee says. “I’m wondering the same thing.”
It turns out the performance is semi-autobiographical.
"They find out my mother is a prostitute and my father is a pimp,” Tyson says.
“So I come from this sex worker world as a young kid so no way I could have a good relationship with women with that kind of goodies. So I talk about that kind of stuff."
Its a night of confessions. Tyson admits to being stoned during his fight with Andrew Golota, to having spent more time smoking weed and sleeping with Japanese prostitutes before he was knocked out by Buster Douglas in Tokyo.
And in the promotional interviews he even claimed to have got a prison official pregnant while serving time for rape.
It'll also be the Broadway debut of director Lee who admits Tyson is in charge.
"It takes courage to get in the ring but it stages courage to get on the stage. Denzel's not playing Mike, it's not Sam Jackson, it's Mike Tyson."
Time magazine called the Vegas run of the show bizarre.
"I don't think it's therapy though I wish it was therapy," Tyson says.
So will “iron” Mike be any good?
Well let's face it - if he's not who's going to tell him?
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