Based on the teachings of Lama Thubten Yeshe, THE SOCIETY FOR NEW CUISINE is a Buddhist allegory by East-Asian writer-performer Chris Fung (as seen in Frozen, Cyrano de Bergerac in the West End, Evita at Regents Park). It deals with capitalism, desire, heartbreak and what it takes to truly find satisfaction.
Ahead of the run at The Omnibus Theatre from March 19th until April 5th and at Norden Farm on 8th and 9th April 2025, we sat down with writer-performer Chris Fung to learn more.
What can you tell me about The Society For New Cuisine?
The Substance meets Woman in Black in this debut play from East-Asian writer and performer Chris Fung (Your Lie in April, Frozen, Cyrano de Bergerac: West End, Evita: Regent’s Park) and directed by Rupert Hands (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Palladium; Sunset Blvd, Savoy/Broadway).
A deliciously twisted Buddhist inspired folk fable about power, masculinity and heartbreak which took Edinburgh Fringe by storm last summer, now making its much anticipated London debut.
What would you give for a taste of new understanding?
Where did the inspiration for the show come from?
This piece is a London Transfer of our successful debut piece, which our company took to Ed Fringe in 2023. We played at the Underbelly Cowgate - and got a bunch of 4 and 5 star reviews, which encouraged us to keep developing this piece. We are a young, dynamic team wanting to make excellent art. We are TAKING RISKS. We’ve all been part of some pretty shiny shows, and we are EXCITED to put that experience into telling THIS story. After a world-shattering break up, a man with many questions finds THE SOCIETY FOR NEW CUISINE, a group who seem to have all the answers. But what must he sacrifice to feel truly whole?
I went through a breakup myself - and in order to find solace/answers to the question of AM I GOOD HUMAN? HOW THE HECK CAN I PROCESS THIS? I started reading and reading and reading. Plays, Novels, everything. Mike Bartlett’s Bull, THE 47th, Wild, Vinay Patel’s AN ADVENTURE/TRUE BRIT, Sarah Kane, Lucy Prebble, Nina Segal’s gorgeous ‘IN THE NIGHT TIME BEFORE THE SUN RISES’, Tim Crouch, Martin Crimp, Terrence Rattigan, Bong Joon-Ho, Quentin Tarantino Scripts, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Dr Seuss.
It got dark.
Mostly though, I was looking at making something that could adequately describe what it felt like to have my heart being broken, and then needing to put it away to go and perform in the Original West End Cast of Disney’s Frozen.
How did you approach blending the topics and themes discussed in the show?
With great difficulty! I’ve been really lucky to have dramaturgy from a bunch of really experienced theatre creators - top of this list is RUPERT HANDS, Sophie Drake, Jamie Lloyd (who has been enormously kind), Martin Crimp. I think that it is impossible to look deeper into writing without also looking deeper into yourself and what you want to do. I have been reading a lot of Buddhist texts, and one-person plays and talking to my friends. We’ve built a really cool design language for this - set designer YIMEI ZHAO just yesterday sent through her concept drawings, and they are fire. We’ve got design meets next week to talk about sound and lights. We got something sick coming!
When writing and developing the show do you have a target audience in mind?
This piece features the mental health spiralling decline of an over-anxious East Asian man. My hope is that we’ve written this so that men can empathise with this, and people who are around men can take something from this. We hope this to be a RELEASING thing, an interesting story that will leave you with questions.
How has the collaboration been with director Rupert Hands?
Rupert is a gentleman and a scholar - his capacity to balance the one hundred thousand particular concerns that enable a piece to flourish creatively, is so broad and specific. Rupert has garnered an uncommonly deep artistic aesthetic through his work - he has been a long-time associate of Jamie Lloyd’s, and has spent a lot of time learning from his father, CBE Terry Hands, who ran Theatre Clwyd and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Rupert and I have been building this piece together for about 3 years now, so he has been ARGUING with me about it, and negotiating, and listening, and offering for 3 long years.
I tend to pick up and shake the people that I love.
It’s been such a beautiful process for me (I hope it has been for him as well, but you’d need to ask him).
There hasn’t been a lot of it around historically huh? I am so EMBOLDENED by the fact that there is a wave of growing representation TANGIBLY lighting up stages at the highest levels of national and international theatre. Recently, excellent human Nick Winston directed me in YOUR LIE IN APRIL at the Pinter- the very first ALL-ASIAN musical on the West END. We have Totoro at the Gillian Lynne, I played KING AGNARR in the Original West End cast of Frozen, the father of two ironically white cartoon girls. We are at the CREST of a rising wave. Amy Ng’s Shanghai Dolls is going into the KILN in April 2025. Director Anthony Lau is making waves. Nicola Chang is known as one of the strongest sound designers in the UK period, let alone the fact that she is upholding EAST ASIAN excellence. Sound Number One Mike Poon has an international reputation for being a specialist in his field, having INVENTED techniques, and a lineage of other Sound 1s known for their expertise and capacity. Joaquin Pedro Valdes is a rising STAR. Frances Mayli McCann gained international renown in her turn as BONNIE in Frank Wildhorn’s BONNIE AND CLYDE on the West End. Kyoto at Soho Place.
There are CHAMPIONS holding space for my diaspora - New Earth Theatre, Mei Mac’s BESEA Rising Waves, Kakilang, Daniel York Loh’s Moongate, Ellandar productions.
There have NOT been a LOT of writers/theatre makers/creatives of East and South East Asian ethnicity highlighted on stages and screens in times past, but I absolutely believe things are changing, and they are changing NOW.
Where did your arts career begin?
With Paul Sabey, internationally recognised Music Theatre specialist, former founder of the Mountview Musical theatre program. He started a new program in Queensland, in partnership with the Queensland Conservatorium. He and his lovely staff gave me access to a whole world. Thank you Liss, and John Clarke, and Paul Sabey, and Megan Shorey, and Penny Farrow and Kate Foye and Shannon Atkins. My first job came before I graduated from the Queensland Con - I got a job with Opera Australia/the Gordon Frost Organisation in the Australian National tour of THE KING AND I, starring Teddy Tahu Rhodes. I was the understudy for the King. Neil Rutherford (currently the Industry Liaison Officer at Mountview) was my resident director! That job was a blessing.
How do you reflect on your career to date?
It’s been a journey!
What was the first piece of theatre that had a big impact on you?
When I was in Australia, I did an amateur production of URINETOWN, directed by my friend Kenney Ogilvie. It was with SHIRE MUSIC THEATRE. There, a beautiful actress named Melissa Jane Nadine was cast opposite me. She had gone to what was then the strongest Musical Theatre university in Australia - WAAPA. Working with her inspired me to apply myself. Kenney Ogilvie is a creative genius. He had so much love for the craft in every ounce of him. It beamed from his eyes.
AmDram is like FRINGE in that way - it is held together by Duct Tape, and Shoe Polish and one-hundred million beating hearts that are full to the brim with love for story and community.
What gives you inspiration?
Finding like-spirited collaborators and humans and friends. My mates and I run a group called CAMINO MEETS, which is a free monthly gathering in London, for writers and directors and actors and producers. We meet up - cold read bits of our writing, and offer each other dramaturgy and helpful thoughts. We help each other with applications for writing programs/grants/ we drink coffee and argue.
I would like them to see some aspect of themselves, or someone they know in this play.
From there, I would like them to think the choices THE MAN are far too hard, too brutal, too sharp, too full of push, and then maybe that will turn to a reflection on their own lives.
Mostly though, I would like folk to be enduringly curious about starting their own secret societies.
Where can audiences see the show?
We’re on at the Omnibus Theatre March 19-April 5, then at Norden Farm, Maidenhead April 8 -9 https://www.omnibus-clapham.org/the-society-for-new-cuisine/ https://norden.farm/events/the-society-for-new-cuisine
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