A short film by Scrabble looks at the significance of slang

Few things are quite as wholesome, yet at times mind-bendingly competitive, than a good game of Scrabble. At home by a roaring fire, in the pub over a few pints, in a dusty seaside tea shop; what a way to spend an afternoon with pals. Well, it may suprise you to find out that Scrabble is just about as old as your Gran now, having been a board game favourite for 70 years.

To celebrate, agency Babyface has corralled Liv Little of gal-dem, spoken word artist James Massiah, multimedia artist Lotte Anderson and many more to explore the evolution of language and words and the unique joy of a game of scrabble in a new film short by Joe Ridout.

The film demonstrates how Scrabble has — despite its age — permeated popular culture and how the humble board game celebrates the joys of language in all its forms and continues to capture the nuances of today.

In the film, James Massiah performs an exclusive ode to Scrabble within the film, saying: “Scrabble is my family’s favourite game, especially around the holiday season. Great way to get together and it always has a funny way of stimulating some really rich conversation. Intimate, intelligent and always insightful.”

Whilst Liv Little, editor-in-chief of Gal-Dem reveals some exciting news about ‘slang’ being short for secret language… who knew? Sure, we did too. “When you look back to the significance of people who — for their own safety and protection — have had to speak in code or songs or other ways of communication, I think it’s incredibly significant,” she adds, bringing a new sense of depth to the potential wordplay possible in the game.

Never was there a better time to dust the Scrabble box off, get inspired by Joe Ridout’s slightly strange short film and sit down to enjoy a game. Brains at the ready.