Award-winning, multi-award-nominated, critical smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008!
★ Winner! Spirit of the Fringe Award
★ Nominee! Scotsman Fringe First Award
★ Critics' Choice! The List
★ Critics' Choice! The Dubliner Magazine
Reviews:
Babasword Productions presents...
Photos by Billy MacRae. Click here to view more!
Award-winning, multi-award-nominated, critical smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008!
★ Winner! Spirit of the Fringe Award
★ Nominee! Scotsman Fringe First Award
★ Critics' Choice! The List
★ Critics' Choice! The Dubliner Magazine
Reviews:
★ ★ ★ ★
"Like listening to a cross between Shakespeare and Mike Skinner...a joyful experience." The Scotsman
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Powerfully intelligent and awe-inspiringly eloquent, Baba Brinkman and Dizraeli are the saviours of hip-hop." Three Weeks
★ ★ ★ ★
"High-octane lyrical content...a cerebral, savvy production that explores our modern social contract with vivacity and zeal." Fest Magazine
★ ★ ★ ★
"A sensationally accomplished and powerfully thought provoking piece." Dubliner Magazine
★ ★ ★ ★
"Excoriating and moving and shocking and furiously beautiful to watch." Theatre in Wales
★ ★ ★ ★
"A brilliant dramatic final coup-de-theatre...It is clear that these performers are masters of their art." FringeReview.com
★ ★ ★ ★
"Extraordinary freestyle poetry." The List
"A rare and inventive experiment...ingenious rhymes and brilliantly subtle delivery." The Stage
"Thrilling rap drama." The Guardian
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Background:
The Rebel Cell began as a series of debates, some of them in the form of freestyle rhyme, all of them passionate. The subject of most had to do with the nature of freedom, and the ways in which we take it for granted, trade it for security, and occasionally fight to preserve it.
The authors of the play realized before long that they came down strongly on opposite sides of one of the central political debates facing the world: what is the best way to effect change? Democratic action within official channels, or direct activism using alternatives to the current power systems? They also realized that they were able to have this debate in a powerful and very personal way, and still remain friends afterwards.
The Rebel Cell was also partially inspired by a book of cultural criticism, “The Rebel Sell”, by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, which argues that consumer culture, contrary to popular belief, is actually driven by the desire to rebel, by our competitive drive for social distinction, and not by an instinct to conform.
So what is the Rebel Cell? Is it the prisons where rebel activists in Zimbabwe and Myanmar are confined when they dare to speak out? Or is it a space in the mind where self-defined rebels imprison themselves, in an endless cycle of “anti-everything” politics?
In the year 2013, Rebel Cells are everywhere...
Synopsis:
The Rebel Cell is a politically-charged fable that takes place in the year 2013, in a dystopian future England where civil liberties are a thing of the past. Dizraeli is a freedom fighter determined to topple the government and bring global capitalism to a halt. Baba Brinkman is a gadfly journalist who exposes the irony behind Dizraeli’s rebellion. When Dizraeli is arrested and charged as a terrorist, facing life in prison, Brinkman is granted an exclusive interview to confront his motives. The play takes you inside this interview, a lyrical battle of wits and world-views.
The Rebel Cell engages directly with today’s culture of political tension in which one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, asking challenging questions about human rights and the rule of law. It is also a highly irreverent political comedy, and an experimental new form of hip-hop performance, 8-Mile meets 1984.
Now available as a full length LP from Lit Fuse Records! (click below to listen)
