Rex Obano
About
Rex Obano is a screenwriter/playwright. He was born in London and spent a year in the United States on placement where he read Playwriting at City College of New York.
News
BBC Radio 4 has commissioned Faith Hope and Glory an ambitious new series telling brilliant intimate domestic stories that together illuminate the emergence of modern Britain.
This first week of 15’ dramas lays out the origin story that in 1946, Hope and Jim’s baby, entrusted to Eunice to take home to Antigua, is lost at Tilbury Docks, and found by Gloria and Clement, a celibate couple, who decide to keep her and call her Joy. Joy’s life spans the entire series, up to the present day.
BBC Radio 3: Drama on 3 have commissioned Rex Obano to write an original drama. It is to be directed by Femi Elufowoju Jnr. It will be broadcast in 10th October 2021 at 7.30pm.
Re;Verse Theatre have commissioned Rex Obano to write The Hamlet Voyage; a new play about the first recorded performance of Hamlet, which was acted by sailors in 1607 off the coast of Sierra Leone for local West African dignitaries, on the first English voyage to reach India.
The play will examine this cross-cultural encounter that took place before England became deeply involved in the Atlantic slave trade, before the age of British imperialism, and before Shakespeare became a global name. Together with the audience, we will imagine how history might have turned out differently and where we go from here.
Roy Williams has written the series of five 15’ plays to kick off, which is shortly followed by three 45’ plays – Hope and Jim, by Roy, Clement and Gloria by Rex Obano, and Faith and Trevor by Winsome Pinnock.
The cast includes Pippa Bennett Warner as Gloria, Shiloh Coke as Faith and Danielle Vitalis as Hope, together with Gary Beadle as Trevor, Stefan Adegbola as Clement and Martins Imhangbe as Jim.
Series 1 runs from 8th - 17th February 2021
Series 2 runs from 2021 (TBC)
Series 3 runs from 2022 (TBC)
BBC Front Row
I will be on BBC Front Row talking about Faith, Hope and Glory with Winsome Pinnock on Thursday 11th February 2021 at 7.15pm
A GPI film about the New Cross Massacre Action Committee Archives:
On 2 March 2021, the new George Padmore Insitute (GPI) website will be launched with an exclusive film about the Institute’s New Cross Massacre Action Committee archive collection. Writer Jay Bernard and playwright Rex Obano are among the five speakers on the film.