Whether you get your kicks beating your parents at Monopoly, your sibling at Guess Who or losing your marbles with Kerplunk it’s all well and good, but nothing really compares to the feeling of getting a triple word score in Scrabble. No matter if you’re aged 7 or 70, there’s something about the art of language and playing with words, which can be both so rewarding and infuriatingly inciting. And what do Madonna, Barak Obama, Drake and the Royals all have in common? They’re all pretty partial to playing a game of Scrabble.
Since it’s inception in the midst of the Great Depression by American architect Alfred Mosher Butts, Scrabble has gone on to become a world wide phenomenon. The game has sold over 150 million sets and has been translated into 33 languages, with around 30,000 games taking place every hour and 276,663 point-scoring words allowed in the British Scrabble rules. It’s estimated that over half of all homes in Britain own a set, so it’s almost incalculable how many letter tiles have disappeared down the back of the sofa…
So to celebrate 70 years of the well-love family favourite, creative agency Babyface rounded up a group of familiar faces all with a particular penchant for prose, to celebrate the birth of the iconic board game. In a short film by Joe Ridout, poet James Massiah, gal-dem editor Liv Little, artist Lotte Andersen, rapper Jimothy Lacoste, host of YouTube series The Chicken Shop Date Amelia Dimoldenberg and insta streetwear-star Gully Guy Leo come together to wax lyrical about words, stipulate on slang and explore the evolution of our lexicons. Any plans for the weekend? Why not dust of your board (or invest in the 70th special edition), rally together a group of mates and sit down for a game of Scrabble?
