Inua Ellams: Search Party

Pick a word, any word. Prompted by audience suggestions, Inua Ellams will search through his extensive archive of work and perform a reactive and spontaneous selection. Each show is unique and special.

Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer and founder of: The Midnight Run (an arts-filled, night-time, urban walking experience.), The Rhythm and Poetry Party (The R.A.P Party) which celebrates live literature and music, and Poetry + Film / Hack (P+F/H) which celebrates poetry and film.

Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in his work, where he tries to mix the old with the new: traditional African oral storytelling with contemporary poetics, paint with pixel, texture with vector. His books are published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches, Penned In The Margins & Bloomsbury.

Supported by National Centre for Writing

“Like his theatrical work, Search Party shows Ellams’s versatility and fearlessness as an artist who’s willing to take risks, especially in a show like this, which by its nature will never be the same twice.”

– Theatre Mania

“Welcoming, soft-spoken, ultra-casual… but Search Party is… the work of an immensely erudite, multifaceted, and busy artist… His poetry is thoughtful, tender, and muscular.”

– Vulture.

“It’s a luxury to hear Ellams… I highly recommend. Go hang with him.“

– New York Times