Broke 'n' Beat Collective

Sometimes when I can’t stand on my own two feet
Or the voices in my head feel cracked and incomplete
I turn up the volume of my Broken Beats
The Big Heavy Bass sends moves flowing to my feet
Melodic rhymes fill my head and make me feel oh-so-sweet
Cos my Broken Beats help me feel alive
And not so Broke and Beat.

The Broke ‘n’ Beat Collective is a unique mash up of hip-hop, theatre and puppetry which brings together four amazing artists: beat-boxer Hobbit, b-boy LoGisTics , singer/rapper Elektric and puppeteer Mohsen to form The Broke ‘n’ Beat Collective.


Written by Keith Saha, a playwright and the co-artistic director of 20 Stories High, and Sue Buckmaster, the Artistic Director of Theatre-Rites, The Broke ‘n’ Beat Collective is a unique theatrical experience filled with gripping tales, transfixing poetry and hip-hop puppetry. Funny and moving, it is a raw and moving play that explores the hardships faced by young people in the UK today.


This edition was published to coincide with a national tour of the play which opened in February 2016 in a coproduction between 20 Stories High and Theatre Rites.

Keith Saha won the Brian Way Award 2011 for producing the UK's best new play for children and young people with his play Ghost Boy, a co-production with Contact and Birmingham Rep. His highly inventive, hard-hitting and challenging work fuses Hip-hop theatre with puppetry. Keith Saha is the Artistic Director of Twenty Stories High, a theatre company based in Liverpool. His play Melody Loses Her Mojo is published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

Sue Buckmaster is the Artistic Director of Theatre-Rites, a young people’s theatre company. She is a director, puppetry specialist and teacher, and has worked with the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Young Vic, Sadler's Wells, South Bank Centre and Complicite.