Episode Information

In a world turned filthy by environmental corruption, the leaders of a close-knit rural crime-family – the Papios – are sizing up the future. Should they remain true to their old, “honourable” traditions, or embrace the temptations of urban life? Sicilian bandits, they are not. They’re Chacma baboons, roaming the basin of Africa’s Limpopo River, raiding farms and border-posts. THE BABOON MOB is an action-packed mockumentary exposé – comic and tragic by turns – of their adaptation to an environment formed by our human technologies and mountains of waste. But these baboons are no victims. Let’s put the proposition this way: if THE GODFATHER ever met PLANET OF THE APES, and two coupled in unholy union on your local dumpsite, THE BABOON MOB would rip the throat out of the result. Across its six episodes, THE BABOON MOB follows the relationship between Holly, a “biped” (human) reporter, and the two crime-bosses whose rivalry has split the Papio family: Vito Papio, the conservative don, versus his up-and-coming nephew Sonny Boy. Holly’s spoken-word diary – a series of audio-cassette recordings of interviews with Vito and Sonny Boy, plus Holly’s own private revelations – narrates the action.