Coined from the Yoruba saying
“ara m be ti mo fe da” (there are wonders that I want to perform) and the Swahili word "harambee" meaning ‘work together’, ARAMBE productions was founded in September 2003 by Nigerian drama graduate, Bisi Adigun, and was officially launched in February 2004.

The main aim of the company is to afford members of Ireland’s African communities the unique opportunity to express themselves through the art of performance.

By recognising the value and empowering nature of drama, it is the aim of Arambe to ensure that Africans who would ordinarily be denied access to, or be isolated from the Irish mainstream art, have a means to identify, nurture and showcase their artistic talents.

We strive to achieve this aim by producing classic and contemporary plays in the African tradition, by reinterpreting relevant plays in the Irish canon and also by creating and producing intercultural music concert.

Past productions include The Gods Are Not To Blame (2004), Once Upon A Time & Not So Long Ago (2005) created and written by Bisi Adigun in collaboration with the cast, The Kings of The Kilburn High Road (2006 & 2007), The Dilemma of A Ghost (2007), Through A Film Darkly by (2008) Pantomime (2008); Celeb8Arambe@5 Music concert (2009) The Trials of Brother Jero a new version by Bisi Adigun (2009) which was also produced in Nigeria in a tripartite arrangement between the National Theatre of Ireland, the Creative Department of University of Lagos and Arambe Productions.
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“Bisi Adigun has been the most sustained and successful of those attempting to reflect Irish demographic change in the theatre. His Arambe theatre company has sought to fuse African and Irish theatre, and his inspired version of Jimmy Murphy’s Irish emigrant play, The Kings of the Kilburn High Road, with Nigerian and Nigerian-Irish actors, was a seminal moment, more telling even than his very successful version of The Playboy, written with Roddy Doyle”

'Decade in Review' by Colin Murphy
The Independent Dec. 31, 2009

The Playboy of the
Western World
in a new version by
Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle Commissioned by
Arambe Productions



Directed by Jimmy Fay
Oct 3 - Nov 24 2007
The Abbey Theatre
»» read more

Arambe’s new version of The Playboy of the Western World is an Arts Council funded modern reinterpretation of J M Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. To coincide with the centenary of the first production of this Irish classic in the Abbey in 1907, Arambe commissioned its founder and artistic director, Bisi Adigun and Irish award winning author Roddy Doyle (1993 Booker Prize Winner), to work collaboratively for ten months in 2006 to adapt The Playboy. In October 2007, The Abbey produced the premiere of the new version to critical and commercial success. It is with deep regret that Arambe Productions, who commissioned this new version and Bisi Adigun who came up with the idea and invited Roddy Doyle to co-write the play with him had to disassociate themselves from the most recent (Dec 2008 - Jan 2009) rerun of the new version of the Playboy at the Abbey Theatre. This is because Roddy Doyle and his agent John Sutton on the one hand, and the Abbey Theatre / Amcharlann na Mainstreach on the other, have refused to honour the contractual agreement they entered into with Arambe Productions in 2006 and 2007 respectively.