Writer: Mei Leng Yew
Director: Ailin Conant
Mei Leng Yew’s two-hander (plus a walk-on) is warm, funny and beautifully directed and acted in the Bush’s intimate studio space.
Nonetheless, there are issues. First, the thrust of the piece is so deeply rooted in Chinese culture that anyone who isn’t part of that will miss many of the finer points. The information in the script, which press night attendees were given, helps, but no play should need explanatory notes to make sense to the whole audience. Second, the last 20 minutes are suddenly much darker and more serious, so that it feels as if we have hopped, quite abruptly, into a different play. Third, the ending is too protracted and the pace flags.
Mei Mac is terrific as the Girl born in the UK to Chinese immigrant parents. A trainee solicitor, Mac’s character wants to visit – and live with – her girlfriend Naomi, but it’s the month of the Hungry Ghost and her superstitious mother is anxious. Mac voices her mother, her father, a police officer, Naomi, a secretary at work and Naomi’s mum – all with conviction and fine comic effect.
Isabella Wei plays the titular ghost who haunts the Girl and becomes a sort of alter ego to her. The Hungry Ghost legend involves compulsive eating, so the plot strays into hints of eating disorders with a lot of funny stuffing in of food – the sequence with the whole chicken is priceless. There’s something vulpine about Wei’s prowling presence. Sometimes she becomes the Girl. Quite often they speak as one. There’s a lot of effective physical theatre in this production, and it works particularly well for the stylised sex scenes (intimacy director: Sango Tajima). Wei can do unusually telling facial expressions and frequently turns the mood simply with her eyes. Mac and Wei work together seamlessly.
Adrianna Kei has a very funny moment when she comes on dressed as a Sainsbury’s employee to sweep up the Girl’s mess after running criminally amok in said supermarket.
Yimei Zhao’s set is fun. Several cupboard doors are set into a plain pale pink back screen. Each time one of these opens, it reveals something different including a lot of food and cooking utensils. At one point, one of them becomes a window. And Carla Ng’s sound design includes some dramatic bangs to keep us firmly in comic horror mode.
It’s enjoyable and worth seeing – expect to laugh a lot – but it isn’t flawless.
Runs until 31 October 2026
