It's 1974, and you're clutching a ringside ticket in Kinshasa...
Opening this week, in Dock X London's warehouse space near Canada Water station, it's an immersive theatre-experience-festival hybrid that promises to transport you back to 1970s Zaire and the championship bout that entered sporting legend.
Rumble in the Jungle Rematch reimagines the Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman bout, splicing together footage from 1974, re-enacted press conferences, live music, a Congolese market-inspired menu from Future Plate, and an elaborate set spanning a grand hotel lobby, a marketplace, Ali's dressing room and the Zaire 74 music festival — all leading towards the eventual clash of the titans in the Stade du 20 Mai's boxing ring.
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It's a high-energy, beautifully soundtracked production, capturing some of Ali's poetic charisma, throwing in some mesmerising choreography in the ring, and spinning you smoothly from ambitious set-piece to ambitious set-piece — less a linear retelling of the championship bout than a big, theatrical celebration of its place in cultural history.
Rumble in the Jungle Rematch is at Dock X from 14 Sept - 29 Oct 2023. We have access to a batch of £15 tickets for the last 2 weekends of Oct.
