'I'm a rainbow too'-a play about Bob Marley

Producer: Leontine Hass
Writers: Benjamin Zephanaia, Clint Dyer
Director: Clint Dyer
Dramaturge: Lorne Campbell
Musical Director: Mike Dixon
Creative Consultant: Tommy Cowan (Bob Marley's former Road Manager)

We are very grateful that this production is supported by Arts Council England.

The seed production showcase for 'I'm a rainbow too' will be in the first week of September 2011.



Design by Toby Tinsley

Benjamin Zephaniah

Benjamin Zephaniah was born and raised in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, which he called the "Jamaican capital of Europe". He is the son of a Barbadian postman and a Jamaican nurse.[4][5] A dyslexic, he attended an approved school but left aged 13 unable to read or write. He writes that his poetry is strongly influenced by the music and poetry of Jamaica and what he calls "street politics". His first performance was in church when he was ten, and by the age of fifteen, his poetry was already known among Handsworth's Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities. He received a criminal record with the police as a young man and served a prison sentence for burglary. Tired of the limitations of being a black poet communicating with black people only, he decided to expand his audience, and headed to London at the age of twenty-two.

He became actively involved in a workers co-operative in Stratford, London, which led to the publication of his first book of poetry, called Pen Rhythm, published by Page One Books in 1980. Three editions were published. Zephaniah has said that his mission is to fight the dead image of poetry in academia, and to "take [it] everywhere" to people who do not read books so he turned poetry readings into concert-like performances.

His second collection of poetry, The Dread Affair: Collected Poems (1985) contained a number of poems attacking the British legal system. Rasta Time in Palestine (1990), an account of a visit to the Palestinian occupied territories, contained poetry and travelogue. Many of the poems in Too Black, Too Strong (2001) were inspired by his tenure as Poet in Residence at the chambers of London barrister Michael Mansfield QC and by his attendance at both the inquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings and the inquiry into the death of Ricky Reel, an Asian student found dead in the Thames. We Are Britain! (2002), is a collection of poems celebrating cultural diversity in Britain.

His album Rasta, which featured The Wailers' first recording since the death of Bob Marley as well as a tribute to Nelson Mandela, gained him international prestige[8] and topped the Yugoslavian pop charts.[6][8] It was because of this recording that he was introduced to the political prisoner and soon-to-be South African president Nelson Mandela, and in 1996, Mandela requested that Zephaniah host the president's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Zephaniah was poet in residence at the chambers of Michael Mansfield QC, and sat in on the inquiry into Bloody Sunday and other cases, these experiences leading to his Too Black, Too Strong poetry collection.

Benjamin Zephaniah became a very successful children's poet with his first book of poetry for children called Talking Turkeys which had to go into an emergency reprint after just six weeks. In 1999 he wrote an immensely successful novel for teenagers, Face, the first of four novels to date.

Zephaniah lived for many years in East London but since 2008 has divided his time between Beijing and a village near Spalding, Lincolnshire.[9] He also lived in Indonesia for 5 years.

Clint Dyer

Clint has acted for 20 years in film, TV and theatre, starring in films like SUS, The Trail, Cherps, Mr Inbetween, Everybody Loves Sunshine (aka Busted), Love Me Still and appearing in the likes of Sahara, Unknown, Agora, Mr Bean 2, Shopping etc TV includes Fallout, Trial & retribution, Dalziel & Pascoe, Inspector Linley, The Commander, Lock Stock, Theif Takers, Prime Suspect etc. On stage he has worked with heralded directors like Mike Leigh, Micheal Attenbourgh, Jane Howel, Ian Brown, Mike Bradwell, Dawn Walton, Philip Hedley etc.

Clint Dyer runs 3rd Eye Films. 'SUS' is the first film to have been made with Clint Dyer as producer. Clint won best actor for his role in SUS at the Texas Black Film Festival. Clint directed the Olivier, Evening Standard, and TMA, nominated show 'The Big Life', bringing it to the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, making it the first Black British musical to go the West End.

Clint has also directed a trilogy of shorts films with Positive Strides UK. The first, 'Pukka' which won the Notting Hill Film Festival BCIA award, also played at Seatle Film Festival; Cannes Film Festival; BFM International Film Festival and has been bought by Propeller TV. The second film, 'One Of Us' won the Hollywood VSM (Very Short Movie) film award for best drama (2007), the best actor category at the BFM International Film Festival (2007) and was voted as one of the top ten shorts by the UK Film Council's "First Past The Post" scheme. It has also played at the Beverly Hill Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Cannes and has picked up by Propeller TV and Shorts International. The third film, 'Second Chance' has played at Raindance Film Festival (2009), BFM International Film Festival (2009), Clermont Ferrand Film Festival (2009) and the Mid Atlantic Black Film Festival(2009)

As a writer, Clint has been commissioned by Scala Films, Sceen East, The Royal Court Theatre and Soho Theatre Company.

Kerron Darby

Kerron trained at the Identity Drama School, the United Kingdom’s First Black Drama School. Television credits include The Bill, Casualty, Beautiful People (BBC), Postcode (BBC) and Silent Witness. Theatre credits include The Knowledge and Little Platoons(both Bush Theatre) and rehearsed reading Big Red (Royal Court Theatre).

Lorne Campbell

Lorne Campbell is a freelance Theatre Director, Artistic Director of Greyscale and creative fellow at the RSC/Warwick University. Formerly the Associate Director of the Traverse Theatre, Lorne has worked extensively in New-Writing, developing Writers, and directing productions including award winners such as Distracted by Morna Pearson (Winner Meyer Whitworth Award) and Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Alan Wilkins (Best New Play Critics Awards Theatre Scotland.). Recently Lorne has directed productions for Birmingham Rep, The Traverse, Oran Mor and The Theatre Royal, Bath., Lorne has also worked extensively in Eastern Europe and Russia including tours and productions for The British Council, Teatri Polski Bydgosczc, And the Ensemble of Togliatti. Lorne is currently developing new productions for Greyscale, commercial touring productions and short films.

Londonstani

Producer: Leontine Hass
Writer: Gautam Malkani
Music Producer/Composer: Rishi Rich
Musical Director: Mike Dixon

Gautam Malkani will adapt his cult classic novel 
'Londonstani' for the stage. Music will be written 
by the internationally acclaimed Asian music 
producer Rishi Rich. The show will involve hip hop, 
typography/graffiti based design.

The novel's action is set in Hounslow, London, and 
its main character is a young man, Jas, who joins 
a gang of Sikh and Hindu youngsters making a living 
on the side unlocking stolen cell phones.When they 
take a phone from the wrong person, Jas and his three 
friends become engaged in "a shadowy scheme that 
leads to Terrible Consequences." Besides being pursued 
by gangsters, Jas also has to deal with cultural 
problems after he falls in love with a Muslim girl.

What Gautam Malkani says about his novel:

Basically the book tells the story of a bunch of 
19-year, old middle-class mummy’s boys trying to be 
men – which they do by asserting their cut-and-paste 
ethnic identities; by blending their machismo with 
consumerism; by trying to talk and act as if their 
affluent corner of a London suburb is some kind of 
gritty ghetto; by adding to this whole pretence by 
trying to block out their intelligence; and by grating 
against typically overbearing mothers who would rather 
their sons remain boys.

Gautam Malkani is a journalist for The Financial Times, 
and the author of the novel Londonstani. He has worked 
on the FT's UK news desk in London as well as in the 
Washington Bureau. He is currently the head of the 
newspaper's Creative Business section.

For more on Gautam Malkani: 
http://www.gautammalkani.com

Rishi Rich is a British music producer born in Croydon, 
England and based in London. He began his career in 
the Asian Underground scene and later became internationally 
known for his Bhangra tracks, his Hindi remixes, and as 
a pioneer of Indian-R&B fusion music.

Through the Rishi Rich Project, he was responsible for 
discovering British Asian talents who would later gain 
mainstream success, such as Jay Sean (considered the 
most successful British urban artist of all time), Juggy 
D and Veronica Mehta (both successful in India), and Mumzy 
Stranger (first mainstream British Bangladeshi artist).

He has also remixed various established mainstream 
artists such as Madonna, Britney Spears, Mis-Teeq, 
Craig David and Aqua's Lene Nystrøm. In the past, 
he has produced many remix albums, for example "Love 
2 Love". Recently, he has produced two solo albums, 
including his most recent album The Project.
For more about Rishi Rich:

http://rishirichproductions.com