Writer: Elisabeth Tu
Director: Yue Tang
Playwright Elisabeth Tu was delirious with flu when she envisioned an amusing scenario about disoriented migrant Mei, newly arrived in the UK and suddenly bereft of her tastebuds: they’d escaped and started running amok.
Well-versed in Western absurdist works – Ionesco, Gogol, Beckett – Tu applied her learnings to the fever dream, beefing it up with observations around food, migration, identity, longing, belonging, home, and her Chinese / Belgian background. Buds, Revolt! is the delightfully idiosyncratic result.
Every aspect of the piece is brisk and bright, from the ingenious, multi-purpose set (cleverly crafted by Joyce Hanjue Zheng) to the dialogue effortlessly batted back and forth between main players Tu and Hana Joi. The pair trebles up as posh ladies in gleaming white hats (as if they’ve just stepped from the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady), bestie flatmates Mei and Jennifer, and the wayward buds themselves, heavily bobbled like Pearly Kings and Queens.
The posh ladies set the tone in clipped 1940s RP accents – “Such fun!” – emitting high-pitched laughter and banter reminiscent of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw: “The cleaner who passes by every two weeks they call the maid!”
They refer to audience members in knowing numerals, complain about the weather, and gossip about the scandal of Mei’s buds: “They gathered a rowdy crowd by Hyde Park!” Mei, it transpires, has been to the police, to no avail.
The ladies pare back their attire to become flat-share friends Mei – recently landed – and second-generation Jessica. Mei is showing Jessica some Chinese culinary tropes by cooking Ko Shui Ji – literally ‘mouthwatering / saliva’ chicken – with neatly sketched and cut-out ingredients: Shaoxing wine, red onions, garlic, ginger. But the fiery Sichuan flavours are lost on them both: Jessica’s sense is dampened, empathetically.
The flatmates double down on their attempts to revive Mei’s taste. They search for the essence of the five flavour types (“Bitterness: the keeper of painful memories and battles won and lost”) and seek enlightenment from a kitchen towel scroll. Nothing works; they resolve to take back the buds by force.
Enter the prancing, pearl-bobbled buds as Oliver-ousting TV chefs. They’re loud, fierce and filled with righteousness in the name of the nose: “Freedom to all smells and flavours!” Their recipe delivery is punchy and emphatic – clap, stab, pull, push, flatten – ending in a round of commands to a mad jazz track.
Tu and Joi are at their performative peak here, revelling in quick-fire dialogue and precision movements: they’re loud, clear and never miss a syllable or beat.
The pace becomes more contemplative after this bravura sketch, allowing for moments of reflection, surreal synaesthesia, and calm consumption. The play might benefit from more of these breathing spaces, a slightly better-structured narrative, and a rather less inscrutable resolution. It deserves to be longer and less hectic.
But as it stands, at the height of a stuffy London summer, Buds, Revolt! is a witty, imaginative and charming breath of fresh air.
Runs until 11 August 2025
Camden Fringe runs until 24 August 2025
