You should always listen to your mum; that’s the lesson from the spooky rom-com The Hungry Ghost, which is Mei Leng Yew’s debut play.
British Chinese ‘Girl’ (Mei Mac) is excited and nervous to be moving in with her Scottish girlfriend, Naomi, except she hasn’t told her parents.
In a rush to leave, she ignores her mum’s plea to take extra care as it’s the first night of the Hungry Ghost Festival, and in so doing sets herself on a collision course with an obsessive ghost (Isabella Wei).
This ghost has a plan, now that it is free to wander, which involves living out the desires that went unfulfilled in life.
As the ghost now straddles two worlds, so does Girl. She is part of her traditional, superstitious Chinese mother’s world and also that of work, relationships and social politics.
She tries to keep the two compartmentalised; it’s a little bit of cowardice mixed with denial.
The play is a dizzying, yet successful mix of folklore and reality, and it covers a lot of ground among the laughs and mild horror.
Mei Mac has the gymnastic job of not only playing Girl but also her mother, Naomi and various other characters that form part of the story.
She does it with great skill, dexterity, faultless accents and an inexhaustible amount of energy.
Isabella Wei’s ghost is amusingly destructive, but she layers her performance with a darker, more sinister edge.
The stage set is simple, with a series of hidden cupboards at the back and behind the doors, various items appear – or disappear.
It’s a layer of ‘magic’ in a play setting that steps between the real and fantastical.
Final thoughts
The Hungry Ghost is a play that is culturally rich and fast-paced, almost to the point of wanting it to slow down for a moment.
But it’s highly imaginative and successfully sustains its ideas, and you won’t see anything else quite like it. I’m giving it 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The Hungry Ghost, Bush Theatre
Written by Mei Leng Yew
Directed by Ailin Conant
Cast: Mei Mac, Adrianna Kei and Isabella Wei
Running time: 1 hour and 50 minutes including an interval
Booking until 31 October
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