| Collaboration. New Writing. Political Animals.
Founded in January of 2013 by Hong Kong born Jingan Young POKFULAM RD PRODUCTIONS 薄扶林道 is a non-profit London based theatre company dedicated to pioneering new writing. Named after artistic director Jingan Young’s birthplace in Hong Kong, Pokfulam Rd are dedicated to nurturing young writers, producers, directors, and actors to collaborate and create not only challenging pieces of theatre but ones that portray the way we live now. POKFULAM RD began with a humble rehearsed reading of new plays by young playwrights in the basement of the celebrated Albion Bookshop in North Oxford THE PLAYS THE THING. Our next more experimental work took place at the Maybe a Vole Gallery in East London, A Greater Inclination in July 2013 which was a collaboration with new writers and academics on the biographies of literary giants such as Graham Greene and EM Forster. We saw our first full-scale production with THE T-GROUP a play about doctors and empathy, which ran during the Kings College London Arts & Humanities Festival “Being Human” 2013 in London on the Strand. This was followed by a debate on the ethics of medicine with Times critic Kate Bassett and Genevra Richardson. We then returned for the 2014 King’s College London Arts & Humanities Festival “Going Underground” with COLONY PART I, a collaboration with several art forms: poetry, theatre & art. It was a response to the theme of “Colonisation” between playwrights Thomas McMullan, Vinay Patel, Allan Johnson, Lydia Thomson, controversial Chinese artist Aowen Jin and Faber poet Jack Underwood, it ran to a sold out house from 14 to 25 October ’14. On February 14th 2016 Pokfulam produced a 14 play (and comedy) all-day theatre festival HIDDEN VICE at Theatre N16, which featured over 50 artists and played to a full house of over 70 audience members and received four star reviews. In early 2016, Young’s play on China and the housing crisis I’M JUST HERE TO BUY SOY SAUCE had its premiere during the WHOSE LONDON IS IT ANYWAY festival. From May, the play, in association with Papergang Theatre, 1989 Productions and Untold Theatre toured throughout London during the Illuminate Festival at the New Wimbledon, Old Red Lion Theatre and the China Exchange. More here Perhaps the first of its kind in the UK, a showcase for Female, Chinese and SE Asian playwrights Foreign Goods Last Forever took place on November 29th, 2016 to a sold out house. This production was in association with THEATRE503 and supported by Old Vic Theatre New Voices Lab and the China Exchange. Playwrights included: Naomi Christie, Suet Lee Tan, Amy Ng, Lucy Sheen, Naomi Sumner & Jingan Young. Directors included Tessa Hart, Ian Nicholson, Freyja Winterson, Alice Kornitzer and Kim Pearce. “There was something for everyone in this eclectic mix of new plays from female playwrights…intriguing event” ★★★★ LondonTheatre1. Foreign Goods Last Forever 2: Visions of England took place on the 25 and 26 April 2017 at Theatre503 and featured the UK premiere of a play by David Henry Hwang. It was a sold out event and received ★★★★ reviews. 8 of the plays from the Foreign Goods showcases by Cathy Lam, Julie Cheung-Inhin, Lucy Sheen, Jingan Young, Stephen Hoo, Kathryn Golding, Suet Tan, & Amber Hsu will be published as a collection: “Foreign Goods: A Collection of Writing by British East Asian Artists” published by Oberon Books in January 2018. We have a resident goldfish we inherited from The Gate Theatre called Sammy Lee. He performed during a run of “Medea”. He is hoping one day to re-tread the boards. See our Collaborators for a list of names, contacts and institutions we’ve worked with. |
