About the film
Filmed at the Young Vic, starring community performer, Mike Clarke, Jack Rooke’s The Game uses the rules of Monopoly to explore the homelessness epidemic in England.
The Game (Watford)
Cast & Creatives
Written by Jack Rooke
Featuring Mike Clarke
Director Daniel Raggett
Filmmakers Tristan Shepherd & Andrew Muir
Producers Nadia Latif & Imogen Brodie
Executive Producers Kwame Kwei-Armah & Despina Tsatsas
Jerwood Assistant Director Floriana Dezou
Runner Patrick Ellis
Jack Rooke is a 24 year-old comedy writer, doc-maker and mental health campaigner from Watford. A Broadcast Magazine TV Writers' Hot Shot and BBC New Talent Hotlist comedian, Jack just finished making his debut sitcom pilot Big Boy for BBC Comedy. His debut live hour Good Grief, a comedy-theatre show co-written with his 85 year-old Nan, was met with critical acclaim earning numerous runs at Soho Theatre, a UK tour, a nomination for Best Emerging Artist Total Theatre Awards 2015 and a highlights mention in The New York Times’ Top Edinburgh shows. The show was later adapted for BBC Radio 4. His second show Happy Hour commissioned by Soho Theatre premiered at the Edinburgh Festival 2017 receiving a nomination for The Scotsman Mental Health Fringe award and a place in the Top 50 highest reviewed shows of that year’s fringe, aggregated by The List. As a presenter Jack made his debut BBC Three doc series Happy Man about alternative solutions to improving youth mental health and last month Radio 4 broadcast his first arts doc Mamma M.I.A: Influence of An Icon profiling the artistry of rapper M.I.A. He is currently writing his debut book 'Cheer The F**k Up’ for Penguin Random House/Ebury Books.
Michael Clarke graduated from LSDA in 2015 and has completed additional courses at RADA. Michael has played some of Theatre's most comedic characters including: Lefou in Beauty and the Beast; Adolfo Pirelli in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; Michel in God of Carnage; His own comedy play Good Luck was a finalist in the Cambridge Hotbed Festival. Michael first performed for the Young Vic in Matthew Xia's The Sound of Yellow. He is currently working on directing his own short film and plans to finish writing his next play in the new year.
Daniel Raggett is a director. Most recently, he adapted and directed Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice (Gate Theatre), starring Leanne Best. Other work in theatre includes A Marked Man (HighTide); Old Vic New Voices: 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic); The Seagull (Bloomsbury Theatre); Mr Kolpert (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). As associate director his work includes Network (National Theatre/Broadway). Other work at the National Theatre includes associate director on The Red Barn and staff director on Three Days in the Country and A Small Family Business. He was also associate director on 1984 (UK tour/international tour/Almeida/West End/Broadway); Hamlet (Almeida/West End); Mary Stuart, Iliad, Odyssey (Almeida); Bad Jews (West End).
