MEASURED strictly by the long and short hand (or digitally), the clock has been running on Owen ‘Blakka’ Ellis’ Tick Tick for some time.

On Thursday, April 29, Tick Tock goes to a third stage at its third venue, opening for a commercial run at the Theatre Place, Haining Road, New Kingston.

It started in 2003 with Ellis, then a lecturer in Community Drama at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, developing and directing the one-act drama on the invitation of Eugene Williams, director of studies at the School of Drama.

The script draws on material written by Ellis from Rhythm, Riddles, Revelations, an unpublished poetry manuscript as well as pieces from his chapbook Gateman.

Now, six years later, the fusion of poetry and dancehall music, which examines the ticking time bomb of life in a Jamaican inner city, has remerged as a full-length play in a staged reading directed by Carolyn Allen at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts.