Neil Hornick, Phantom Captain of the counter-culture, dies at 85

RIP Neil Hornick, legendary writer, performer and theatre director

First published 21 April 2025

Neil Hornick, a pioneer of 1960s counter-culture and alternative theatre, left the stage at the weekend aged 85.

Like many others, I met him through his script company, Reading and Righting, and found myself ushered on board the good ship Neil. True to his counter-culture roots, he was old-school generous, creative and always on the look-out for non-conforming artistry.

It was no surprise he’d take me to do street theatre (my first and only) at Jim Whiting’s Bimbotown in Leipzig in the 1990s (another legendary, counter-culture figure, Jim made Herbie Hancock’s mechanical dolls in the Rockit video.) You couldn’t wish for a whackier, more delightful experience.

Neil was sensitive, super-smart and witty. His many creative outings since founding the Phantom Captain theatre company in 1970 – including The Serviette Union, hardy har! – fed an army of creatives, sparking their imagination and allowing them an expression.

The Steampunk Opium Wars: art as subversion

In 2011 (premiered 2012) I was commissioned to create an event, and help curate, for the Royal National Maritime Museum to mark the opening of their Traders Gallery, which included the tiniest acknowledgment of the East India Company’s opium trading — less trading and more inflicted on China at the barrel of a Royal Navy gun. Britain was two years into its “Golden Age” of trading with China after Prime Minister David Cameron’s Beijing initiative, and it might have been considered churlish not to mention this considerable part of their history in the Greenwich home of the Royal Navy.

The Opium Wars were not on the school history syllabus. So I decided to give it to the narrative vacuum thus far with both barrels in The Steampunk Opium Wars.

I devised a musical extravaganza with a small but perfect cast. I was the Narrator. Writer and guitarist Charles Shaar Murray was joined by bassist Marc Jefferies. The characters Lord Palmerston (John Crow Constable), Sir Jardine Matheson (a composite narco-capitalist played by Paul Anderson) and Queen Victoria (Louise Whittle) presented the British imperialist case. William Cobstone (a composite anti-opium wars campaigner played by John Paul O’Neill) and Commissioner Lin Zexu (Hugo Trebells) argued against, while Captain Ironside would be our eye-witness to the horror of the destruction and massacre on Chinese soil by the rapacious British Empire.

And who better to play Captain Ironside than the Phantom Captain himself: Neil Hornick.

VIDEO YouTube: Neil Hornick’s speech as Captain Ironside in The Steampunk Opium Wars, 2012

Farewell to the innovators and seers

Before the show we handed out foil wraps of opium from dinky bourgie East India Company bags — actually lumps of sticky Soreen bread I’d lovingly rolled over two nights (not on my thighs, I’ll hasten to add, for we are subverting the stereotypes, not enhancing them). Neil did this wonderfully well, enchanting the audience with his English charm as he handed out poison from a pretty bag — much like Empire but with less GBH.

Afterwards, Neil/Captain Ironside ushered audiences into a side-room where actor and former Cock Sparrer guitarist and singer Gary Lammin presented the Hackney Tea Ceremony, satirising the fragrant western tourist version of the ritual with an electric kettle and heavily sugared mugs of PG Tips, all in front of a Union Jack. Mindful of his current band, The Bermondsey Joyriders, Gary subverted the subversion by renaming his activity the Bermondsey Tea Ceremony: Norf and Sarf London battling it out in a microcosm of East and West.

One of Neil’s enviable adventures was his performance at the British pavilion at Shanghai Expo in 2010. I really wished he could have got me on that gig, a longing only eased five years later when I visited China under my own steam as a speaker at the Bookworm Festival in 2015.

He will be much missed as the dwindling number of innovators and seers pass over the edge and leave us in the final waves of what had been a tremendous tsunami breaking on the shore. It is a tragedy that later generations will have no experience of these figures.

Neil died soon after his book, The Magic Eye: the cinema of Stanley Kubrick, was finally published after decades of legal threats and blocks by the temperamental director who demanded less of the critique. Neil’s integrity was not for sale.

He leaves a wife, daughter and son: Savka, Maya and Kelsang Wangdak.

Listen to Neil’s interview with Unfinished Histories.

Neil Hornick as Captain Ironside hands out opium wraps in silver foil from an East India Company bag at The Steampunk Opium Wars premiere, Royal National Maritime Museum, 2012. (Actually squished cake.)

VIDEO YouTube: Neil Hornick as Captain Ironside in a post-show discussion at The Steampunk Opium Wars premiere at the Royal National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, 16 February 2012.

Anna Chen and Neil Hornick in Phantom Captain mode at Jim Whiting's Bimbotown, Leipzig 1990s (The bed travels across the floor!)

Dreamlike: Anna Chen, Jim Whiting and Neil Hornick on a bucking mechanical sofa at Bimbotown, Leipzig, 1990s

Neil Hornick and Susan Croft at the Restaging Revolutions exhibition in Lambeth & Camden 1968-1988. Pic: Anna Chen

Suzy Wrong at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - 30th anniversary

Suzy Wrong, Stereotype Slayer, hits the Edinburgh Fringe Festval

Thirty years ago today, I took my show, Suzy Wrong Human Cannon, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a historic first by a Chinese Brit.

It was a ground-breaking challenge thrown down to the degrading stereotypes embedded deeply in western culture, and it succeeded in making visible the pernicious way in which these representations thrive. And it was done by a Chinese woman, not a distanced academic with no skin in the game.

Yellow Peril tropes of vacuous Lotus Blossoms and evil Dragon Ladies had been around ever since the 19th century Opium Wars demanded subjugation of Chinese through dehumanisation as well as military conquest. When the target group is no longer recognised as human, Empire can perform all sorts of dog-whistle tricks to manipulate its own population into morally reprehensible behaviour from exploitation to outright war. This is particularly effective and serves a dual purpose if the domestic population is also directly suffering from its ruling classes' predations, but doesn't know who's doing it. Now you see it, now you don't. Hey, blame this group, instead.

In 1994, I'd half suspected my show might not be necessary. After all, surely we were all sophisticated enough to recognise the stereotypes of evil, dishonest, cheating, Fu Manchu creatures and reject them. The screening of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, at the same festival I was playing, disabused me of that optimism.

Sadly, the wave of character assassination in the Western media regarding the Chinese Olympians at Paris 2024 confirms what I've been warning for several years. They are back with a vengeance and being served up to a beleaguered home population in search of scapegoats for the social and economic wreckage wrought by successively savage rounds of government.

Crude scapegoating started in earnest after Obama's Pivot to Asia with Trump's Trade War. It was closely followed by US NED colour revolution attempts and the klaxon-horn accusations of the Covid pandemic as public health was weaponised.

So what's changed for Suzy Wrong?

So what's changed in 30 years? What would Suzy Wrong see that's different in our brave new world order since trailblazing her view at the Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh in 1994?

First, there's over 800 million raised out of absolute poverty, a growing middle-class of 550 million, nearly twice the size of the US, a 97% satisfaction with the governing Communist Party of China, according to Harvard/Pew research. Pollution is on the wane as China gets to grips with renewables and blue skies are now the norm.

Their economy was motoring ahead until the US decided to put the boot in and then pretend that slow-downs have somehow happened organically, rather than resulting from wave after wave of hate-fuelled sabotage. China's phenomenal success engenders jealousy and they now have to contend with an Opium Wars 2 shaping up as the declining western nations seek the bludgeoning success of old Empires, now that they have little creative left to offer.

Cultural scar tissue

Although China is finding ways around these obstacles, this still leaves scar tissue. Culturally, there's a new colonialism rising as this stuff mutates and adapts. It's disappointing to see that China still hasn't thrown off its adoration of the white man from nearly two centuries of being beaten down. Andrew Tate only has to say something nice about China for uncritical Chinese media to lose their minds and fawn. Mediocre latecomers shove facts around a narrow bandwidth and middle-level bureaucrats throw their weight behind them as they're dragged into bad habits; mostly reactive, unable to project ahead or discuss principles and anything in the abstract.

And, of course, nothing is true unless a white or non-Chinese person says it is true. This takes us full-circle back to the 1870s downturn in the American economy when it took ten "Chinamen" to equal the voice of one white man and a "Chinaman's chance" meant no chance at all.

The harder the West attacks China, the more a significant strand seems to retreat into the old feudal thinking that the OG communists worked so hard to yank them out of. The effects of the psyops are sad to see.

Stuck at Technocrat Level

China has thrived, surpassing the west as technocrats. It has reached the highest levels in the face of unremitting hostility from the declining superpower. The ironies of hostile American policies boomeranging and propelling China to new standards of technological excellence are a pleasure to watch, proving necessity is the Mother of Invention.

However, the same pressures show signs of forcing a contraction of the recent explosion of China's renewed consciousness into old patterns of racial self-doubt and sexism. The West's efforts to contain China are not simply about economics and warfare — they've set their sights on China's cultural and psychological development into its new modern era, of which only 50 years have passed, a mere blip in history.

Have women peaked with former ambassador to the UK Fu Ying (2007-9) and the wonderfully womanly Liu Xin in the Chinese media? Both of whom I wish I'd had as role-models when I was growing up. Tiny girl-women put through elfin filters set to max with high tinkling voices now seems to be what pleases men.

Watching developments, I'm hoping this is just two steps forward and one step back, not a full stop. I'm reminded of the virtual reality game in Three Body Problem where civilisation gets so far and then is lost on the surprise turn of a star.

Raise your game, China. Don't lose the fight at the Technocrat level.

More about Anna Chen

Somi de Souza's play Revolution in a Catsuit opens in Los Angeles: video interviews

Somi de Souza's play Revolution in a Catsuit has bite, depth and substance. Ignored in Britain where minority artists are rendered invisible, it finally won support in Los Angeles where it is running at the Bootleg Theater until the end of April.

Can't wait for the video of the show. In the meantime, here are some behind-the-scenes conversations.

Somi de Souza:

Michael Phillip Edwards (multiple award winning actor, writer and director of the play 'Runt') discusses directing 'Revolution in a Catsuit':

Kirk Wilson - Production Designer:

Hedge fund theatre in Howard Barker yellowface protest: The Print Room 5pm Thursday 19th January

East Asians, theatre practitioners, academics and friends protest against Yellowface casting in Howard Barker play, In the Depths of Dead Love, at the Print Room 19th January

This Thursday (19th January) sees a peaceful protest of Chinese, East Asians, theatre practitioners, academics and friends at the Print Room in London where Howard Barker's play, In the Depths of Dead Love, will be performed by white actors in yellowface casting.

Despite being set in "ancient China", all the Chinese-named characters are played by white actors, rendering us invisible, dehumanised and vulnerable at a time when anti-Chinese feeling is being whipped up by forces who want war with China. In a world rapidly lurching to the right. Barker does the work of the state in denying us our value as human beings.

If this looks familiar, it is. We went through this before when the Royal Shakespeare Company cast The Orphan of Zhao with East Asian actors in only four minor roles out of 17, and none in the main parts. The campaign gave birth to the British East Asian Artists who fought this battle and will continue to challenge all attempts to erase us from our own society and the arts we should all be enjoying fairly and equally on a level playing field.

Blackface has rightly been consigned to the depths of dead prejudice, but East Asians are considered defenceless fair game.

The Print Room, a hedge-fund-financed theatre in Notting Hill (Iraq War co-ordinating bank J P Morgan's Bill Winters is the artistic director's husband who helped fund the theatre), denied that the play was about China, spouting pseudo-intellectual drivel about it only being a metaphor, and that it's actually an English play about English people; the not-so-sub-text being that no-one who looks like me can possibly be English even if born and raised here, absorbing the culture from birth and participating from first word, first picture, first dance, first song.

This disingenuous self-justification has generated widespread mockery.

"No offence was intended and none should be taken ... In the Depths of Dead Love is not a Chinese play and the characters are not Chinese. The production references a setting in Ancient China and the characters’ names are Chinese. These are literary allusions in Howard Barker’s fable and never intended to be taken literally. The allusions are intended to signify “not here, not now, not in any actual real ‘where’ ” and the production, set, costumes and dialogue follow this cue of ‘no place’." From the Print Room's statement

So now I am a mere metaphor: an unreal person from an unreal place. Window dressing for an unutterably dull and pompous exercise in bourgeois angst. His characters lead such drab and tedious lives that perhaps the only way they have to render themselves interesting to themselves, each other  and the audience is to get togged up in chinoiserie drag. This would be the only acceptable explanation but somehow we doubt it. Instead, the paucity of Barker's imagination has him reaching into strangers' lives and ripping the guts out of us.

Like lungfish caught in a rock pool when the tide goes out, Barker, his theatre company The Wrestling School and the Print Room have been washed up in some 1950s version of how British society functions, who is in and who gets excluded. In its more than six years existence, we find that only eight out of 130 actors working at the Print Room have been Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME). And yet, curiously, they tick the diversity box when it comes to Arts Council funding for their projects. As Clarissa Widya of Papergang Theatre observes, "They are a charity supposed 'to advance the arts for public benefit'. What does that say? Only willing to commit to diversity if someone else can pay for it?"

Howard Barker, our 'greatest living playwright' (according to some), made his reputation as a leftist, so his capitulation to reactionary racist practice is even more shocking. Greater self-love hath no man than this: that he throws what are commonly perceived as the weakest minorities under a bus for his career. If he has any character left I hope that in the wee small hours when there's only him and his conscience, he will think hard and deep about perpetuating yellowface practice and let us know what he's come up with.

There has been a flurry of activity and writing from people who care about our culture and our world, who see the arts as more than privileged rich whites raiding the ethnic dressing-up box for a bit of entertainment. From Facebook and Twitter to blogs and academics and the press, it's not only East Asians who are horrified by this backwards step.

I'll be compiling a chronology of this battle which some are calling The Orphan of Zhao II: This Time It's Personal.

To paraphrase Barker himself, "Howard, I have such a withering knowledge of your soul, its pitiful dimensions. It is smaller than an aspirin that fizzles in a glass. . ."

In the meantime, here's the first of several excellent pieces I'll be posting here, which Mr Barker would do well to read and digest.

Actor and writer Lucy Sheen writes:

FEATURE: IN THE DEPTHS OF DEAD LOVE – THE 2017 PLAY THAT SHOWS ‘YELLOWFACE’ LIVES ON IN THE MEDIA
LUCY SHEEN 17 DECEMBER 2016

In January, London UK Theatre goers and culture lovers will have the opportunity to see a theatre production done using Yellowface. In other words, audiences will see a play which is set in China, about Chinese people, performed by a cast of white actors – In The Depths Of Dead Love.
Copied from the Print Room’s website announcing their first production for 2017:

IN THE DEPTHS OF DEAD LOVE
by Howard Barker
Print Room at the Coronet presents a rare opportunity to see the World Premiere of a new play by “England’s greatest living dramatist.” The Times
Set in ancient China, In the Depths of Dead Love tells of a poet exiled from the Imperial Court and the favour of the Emperor, who scrapes a living by renting his peculiar property – a bottomless well – to aspiring suicides. Among these is a married couple who exert an appalling influence over him.

A play set in Imperial China. By one of the most renowned British playwrights. Cause for celebration, or it should be until you take a look at the cast.

Jane Bertish – Mrs. Hu
William Chubb – Lord Ghang
James Clyde – Chin
Stella Gonet – Lady Hasi

Great cast, but from the character names, I may be going out on a limb here, and guessing that these are East Asian people and not Foreign devils. Not, one single British East Asian actor as been cast.

In other words, ladies and gentlemen of the 21st century, on a UK stage in 2017, audiences will be present with a production that will be performed using the hideous, insulting, disrespectful and yes, racist practice of Yellowface. At a time when we really need to be nurturing and respecting each other, amidst the continued protestations from the creative industry, on how they do really respect and understand that diversity is key and that the lack of BAMEs on stage is something that must be redressed. The Print Room will be giving us a production in Yellowface to kick off the new year.

To be clear Yellowface is not just about actors who decided to change their physical facial appearance to ‘look more East Asian’. Yellowface is about casting decisions, the propagation of racist East Asian stereotypes, caricatures and constant whitewashing of culture which leaves no place for East Asians to be involved with or participate in the telling or retelling of stories and history that directly relates to them. By casting white actors in East Asian roles it continues the underlying inference that East Asians are not “good enough” to be cast. That there are not enough East Asian actors and even if they were their proficiency and professional skill is not as great as that of their white counterparts. We all know (Or should do) that this is not true.

After The Orphan of Zhao casting debacle back in 2013, with media headlines of “East Asain actors seek RSC apology over Orphan of Zhao casting” one would have hoped, and I thought that we had moved on from this deplorable and unacceptable practice.

Sugar-Coated Bullets of The Bourgeoise by Anders Lustgarten with a cast of NINE East Asians, is positive proof that in this day and age there is absolutely no need for any Theatre company, any production to participate in the practice of Yellowface.

The recent theatrical productions of, The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, Chimerica, The World of Extreme Happiness, You for Me and P’YONGYANG you cannot in all good faith tell me that Britain only has a handful of British East Asian actors, because it is obvious it has more and the number is growing.

If it was a new play set in ancient Africa, about the Kush (Nubians) or at Al Kurru (Sudan) would we even be talking about the cast being white? Or a new work about Ashoka, would it even be under consideration, to cast the piece using only white actors? The answer is a resounding NO.

It is not about censorship, who can write what or who can perform what. But about how we, as modern human beings, who understand the nuances of being. Identity, race and acceptance, how important to all of us this concepts and constructs are. How powerful visual reference are. If we were operating on a completely level playing field then the colour of an actor would not matter one jot. We would be seeing non-specific casting across the board. No one would bat an eyelid if Queen Victoria was played by a South Asian and Albert by a Black actor.

But we are not there, far from it. It is perfectly acceptable for a white actor to portray characters that are white, non-white and ethnically specific, but if an actor of colour is cast to portray a role that is outside of their ethnic roots it causes, more often than not “negative debate.” Equality, hardly.

Yet when it comes to the East Asians, time and time again such cultural sensitivity and awareness is not just lacking, but completely absent.

The tragedy is the thinking that is involved surrounding works that are about other British ethnicities such as Black, African, Caribbean and South Asian; never, or seldom seems to be applied in any measure whatsoever, when it comes to works that involve East Asia or East Asian themes and characters. If as a society we can apply such thinking and progressive understanding to other British minorities, why can’t this equality of thought and action be extended to British East Asians?

Why?

Are British East Asians so invisible? Do we as human beings mean so little that we literally have no place, in British society, in its culture? We are expected to contribute to all other levels of society, yet we are denied access to participate culturally?

Our shared histories and sacrifices are of so little consequence because the colour of our skin and the shape of our eyes are different?

Do we mean so little that, the wider British society feels, we don’t even merit the same considerations that are afforded or fellow British Minority Ethnics?

That we are, somehow will be less offended by Yellowface than a Black person would be by Blackface? I have been told on more than one occasion that Yellowface is not the same as Blacking up or Blackface. Well, let me tell you as British East Asian, Yellowface is every bit as insulting, demeaning, disrespectful and racist.

For a one-stop archive of events click on PRINT ROOM IN THE DEPTHS OF DEAD LOVE PROTEST CHRONOLOGY

Lucy Sheen: The 2017 play that shows Yellowface lives on
http://www.weareresonate.com/2016/12/feature-depths-dead-love-2017-play-shows-yellowface-lives-media/

Playwright Jingan Young, South China Morning Post: London storm turns spotlight on ‘whitewashing’ in film and theatre

Dr Amanda Rogers: Yellowface alive and well at the Print Room

Actor Erin Quill 16.01.17: In the Depths of British Theatrical Racism @the_printroom

Actor David Lee Jones, Nee Hao magazine 19.12.16: Why is it not acceptable to cast white actors to play Chinese characters on stage or on screen?

Actor Vera Chok 14.01.16: More thoughts on the Print Room

Brian Law on Facebook 18.01.17: So I went to see the play tonight ...

Howard Sherman, The Stage: Yellowface is wrong and the Print Room's explanation is meaningless

Lyn Gardner, the Guardian: Theatre is coming to terms with its diversity problem. Real progress is vital

Wealth brings power, the power to open a theatre in London's Notting Hill, the power to define human beings as worthy or not of inclusion, of defining whether or not we are English. Rich white women in need of a hobby get to do that to us because they are married to bankers, specifically, senior bankers in JP Morgan during the Iraq War era of wealth extraction and paying Tony Blair £2-3 million pa. These are our rulers in our post-truth new world.

Facebook: Protest Against Yellowface Casting at the Print Room

Director Andrew Keates: letter to the Print Room's artistic director ... It is no more acceptable today asking a Caucasian actor to play an East Asian role than asking another actor to play Othello by handing him a tin of boot polish. Simply put, it’s morally reprehensible.
I ask you as Artistic Director to consider meeting with the creative team of In The Depths Of Dead Love immediately and ask them to reconsider this disgusting and bigoted casting or that you pull the production from your programme until they are able to satisfy its casting requirements without detriment to East Asian actors in London.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: There's going to be an anti-racism protest tomorrow over a fringe play in Notting Hill

The Stage 20.12.16: Equity adds voice to condemnation of Print Room ‘yellowface’ casting ... Equity general secretary Christine Payne also criticised the theatre's response of accusations against it, adding: "The Print Room’s statement is completely unacceptable on a number of levels, not least of which is the suggestion that an 'English' play must be completely white.”

What's On Stage 21.12.16: The Print Room apologises for 'any offence caused' in yellowface dispute (but only makes it worse)

The Stage 13.01.17: Print Room "artistic" director describes our protestations as a "social media attack" proving Mrs Hedge Fund couldn't give a flying one.

Grumpy Gay Critic 04.01.17: Yellowface and ‘In The Depths of Dead Love’. What Next? An Action Plan For Diverse Theatre Casting. The Print Room’s casting for In the Depths of Dead Love is a disgrace, and we’re certainly angry. But how can we move towards genuine change?

Cohan Chew at We Are Resonate 19.01.17: ‘Yellowface’ protest against the Print Room for casting white actors in Chinese roles to be held today

Alice Jones fast off the block in the Independent iNews 19.01.17: Howard Barker and the curious case of the Chinese play with the all-white cast “It is, in fact a very ‘English’ play and is derived from thoroughly English mores and simply references the mythic and the ancient. It has therefore been cast accordingly.” Ah, I see, English roles for English people because all English people are white. What a bone-headed thing to write in 2017, when the British theatre has a large pool of East Asian talent to draw on. Just look at the cast of the brilliant, 2013 smash-hit Chimerica. As Harry Potter actress Katie Leung put it “We are here. We exist.”

Evening Standard 19.01.17: Notting Hill theatre faces 'yellowface' protest for casting white actors in Chinese roles

Let's hope Print Room "artistic director" Anda Winters never joins the diplomatic corps. The Stage 19.01.17: Print Room turns on Equity in ‘yellowface’ casting row

Rage Offstage 18.01.17: The Yellowface is Bad Enough, now we have the whitewash

Two stars from Mersa Auda in The Up Coming 20.01.17: In the Depths of Dead Love at the Print Room at the Coronet ... Admittedly, there are some interesting concepts and a few moments that engage the audience, but there is no doubt that the most memorable and relevant aspect of the play is the controversy it caused rather than its content or delivery.

A compete non sequitur and strawman argument in The Daily Telegraph 20.01.17. Who has demanded that the play shouldn't exist? No-one.: Play at centre of 'yellowface' row is insubstantial, not inexcusable - In the Depths of Dead Love review

Sam Marlowe in The Times gives it two stars 20.01.17: The controversial Howard Barker play is far from worthless, but keeps its audience at a chilly distance Controversy over Howard Barker’s new play kicked off before this production even opened — so much so, that it almost gave a whole new meaning to Barker’s term for his own work, Theatre of Catastrophe. Broadcast on BBC radio in 2013, it’s set in ancient China; Gerrard McArthur’s stage premiere features an all-white cast. This has drawn furious condemnation and justifiably so: while the piece is broadly allegorical, it does lazily appropriate a vague Eastern exoticism as a means of denoting otherness. ...

Mark Lawson, however, earns his keep by insulating the elite from society. In his uncritical interview with "Britain's greatest living playwright" he fails to pursue interesting threads such as why is Howard Barker taking Iraq War JP Morgan money? Why does Barker express such contempt for messages when his own is clear — white domination excluding East Asians such as myself from our own English heritage is somehow artistically heroic. Guardian 20.01.17: Howard Barker: 'I have contempt for messages in plays. I'm not trying to influence anyone'

The Stage 20.01.17: Howard Barker defends Print Room casting from ‘yellowface’ criticisms “The ‘Chinese’ nature of the play is within the setting, which is entirely artificial, and the naming of the characters. It’s entirely European in its sensibilities. I’ve only very rarely ever set a play in my own culture – there’s always a distancing effect,” he said. And added: “You have to understand metaphors. The theatre isn’t a place for literalness. We have to accept that anyone from any place or culture can play any role,” he said in an interview in which he went on to claim he had “contempt” for plays that have messages. “Look, the reason I’m a writer is that I don’t involved myself in political and ideological issues. I’m the opposite of writers who enter the theatre to persuade people of their attitudes. It’s not what I do,” he said. In the interview, Barker also criticised Arts Council England, labelling it “preposterous” and something that belongs “in the Soviet era”. “It’s not really interested in art, it’s interested in sociological benefits,” he added....

Daniel York on finding himself in a Pete and Dud sketch in The Stage 20.01.17: The night I was spat at for protesting ‘yellowface’ ... One senior female theatre industry figure, wearing a rather impressive-looking fur coat, stormed across the street to berate the protestors as “racist”. The entire incident was captured on a camera phone though I must confess, even watching back now, I struggle to follow the thread of her somewhat surreal argument, but it appears to be something along the lines of “Equity has said it’s racist for Asian actors to play Asian roles”. I’m pretty sure Equity has said no such thing but does that mean we get the whole of Downton when they give in and make another series? ... Another couple stormed by and yelled a bunch of expletives at us. I went after them to enquire whether they wanted to have a conversation. The man screamed at me “You’re a c***!” with rather more vehemence than one should ever show a complete stranger. I asked him why I was a “c***”. “Because you’re a c***!” I asked him why again. “Because you’re a c*** because I say you’re a c***, because you’re a c*** because I say you’re a c***. You’re a c***!”. ...

Even the Daily Mail senses something is up 21.01.17: Humans star Gemma Chan joins 'yellowface' protest outside premiere of play where WHITE actors were cast in CHINESE roles

Some of the assumptions being made reveal unconscious prejudices that we are somehow incomplete Xeroxs of human beings and unable to engage fully and intelligently with the issues. Kate Maltby writes in the New Statesman that none of us have read or seen the play whereas I've read it, Daniel York has read it, Dr Amanda Rogers and a slew of others have read it and we've all been discussing it; plus Brian Law and a clutch of others saw it prior to and on press night. [I understand that Maltby has now corrected this claim.] I wouldn't go calling us a "model" protest, either. But we shouldn't let that detract from the article's revelation that, in best Charles Foster Kane tradition, Anda and Bill Winters starred their daughter in the "atrocious" The Tempest. Iraq War money and nepotism — poor kid. 20.01.17: The Print Room’s “Yellowface” scandal reveals deeper problems with British theatre

FURTHER READING ON CROSS-RACIAL CASTING

Donna Dickens makes an idiot-proof argument at UPROXX: Casting minorities as white characters is not a double standard. Here’s why.

The Daily Dot: 7 reasons why reverse racism doesn't exist

The Huffington Post: 4 ‘Reverse Racism’ Myths That Need To Stop

Windows to the past - China in Liverpool: South China Morning Post City Scope column

THE "OPERA FOR CHINATOWN" ART INSTALLATION, ON LIVERPOOL'S DUKE STREET, FEATURES PHOTOS OF THE OLD BOARDING HOUSE'S LONG FORGOTTEN RESIDENTS. 

My City Scope column for the South China Morning Post magazine 20th July 2014.

City scope: Windows to the past
Anna Chen in Liverpool

Liverpool, home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe, is hosting the International Festival for Business (IFB) this summer. And if you thought Britain was a country that didn't "make" anything any more, the IFB's emphasis on hi-tech industries serves as a reminder of what the nation does so well: the manufacturing, advanced engineering, automotive and aerospace sectors are all thriving.

Having been booked to read poetry for the festival's China Day, I discovered the city has had a wash and a brush-up in the decade since I last visited. The first thing you notice on emerging from the swanky new curved roof of Lime Street Station is the acreage of glass and steel springing up alongside the old iconic architecture.

The building of the Tate Liverpool art gallery in 1988 spearheaded a revival of interest in the visual arts, but it's only now that the visitor can see it exploding from the town's every pore.

Opposite the Il Forno restaurant, in Duke Street, where I was due to give my talk on the Chinese diaspora and read poetry, a grim Georgian terrace has been magically transformed into "Opera for Chinatown", an art installation dedicated to early Chinese immigrants. Once a boarding house, it's now a key piece of history for the Chinese in Britain.

A palette of scarlet, black, yellow and ocean blue against red brickwork frames enlarged black and white photographs of bygone inhabitants gazing out from the windows at the modern world. Descendants of these subjects have been moved to tears on seeing a forgotten generation made visible.

Some of those early boarding-house residents were sailors who'd served in the British merchant navy during the second world war, but were secretly and forcibly repatriated to China after risking their lives for the Allied cause. Many left behind families who never learnt of their fate.

In The Curious Disappearance of Mr Foo, a remarkable play about this shameful episode, which premiered at the festival, Simon Wan and Tina Malone play lovers torn apart by the Clement Attlee government's betrayal.

Writers Moira Kenny and John Campbell based the dialogue on verbatim testimony from their Sound Agents oral history project to create a powerful and illuminating drama which, alongside their invaluable preservation of the story of Liverpool's Chinese population, places the city centre stage in the rich chronicle of the diaspora.

Is the media ready to accept East Asians as part of British diversity? by actress Lucy Sheen

Actress Lucy Sheen asks what many of us are wondering.

Is the media ready to accept East Asians as part of British diversity?

So after a hopeful start to last week with the launch of Act For Change campaign, the broad acceptance from ITV and the BBC that quotas for BAME artists and creatives are a good thing, to help ensure the diversity and variety that we experience in reality is reflected back in the media.

That was not what I was expecting to hear, very welcome, but then I’m a cynic. I’ve had over thirty years of watching , being actively involved when I was young enthusiastic and naively optimistic. When I say that I was involved, I was as ‘involved’ as those in power would allow a young East Asian to be involved. Back in the days when I would have been referred to as an Oriental. Yes folks, you read it right. ORIENTAL. Not that such language and terms are being used nowadays …

So when it comes to matters of equality and diversity, especially being an East Asian, where we are a minority within the minorities and still being treated appalling, is it any wonder after thirty years that I have evolved into the cynic that I am now.

Why would now be any different to all the those other initiatives, schemes and past “interventions?”

Well . . .

Since the dreadful Royal Shakespeare controversy back in 2012 with their casting of The Orphan of Zhao things have never quite been the same, in my opinion, within the BAME community. (Sidebar, oh how I wish we could find a better term to use when referring to ourselves. Maybe it’s the dyslexic in me but whenever I see BAME I some how always fleeting see the word BLAME. Anyway that’s a whole separate post on it’s own).

And this is the American production of The Orphan of Zhao. Exact same play produced by the American Conservatory Theater – RSC et el take note

The classical foot in the mouth from the cradle of The Bard was probably the best thing that could have occurred for the British East Asians. It drew together many people from across the cultural and ethnic spectrum which is the reality of Britain. Hell it drew in support from around the world! The Orphan of Zhao wasn’t just seen as an East Asian “problem” and an insult to only British East Asians.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

It is a fault within our supposed multicultural, tolerant liberal society. Differing racial and ethnic groups came together and recognised that the British part of being East Asian, in fact Black or Asian was consistently being ignored and conveniently erased. If used, it was only when it was expedient for others to do so and always at our own expense. The British East Asian Artist group, in my personal opinion, has done more, been instrumental in more and has spoken out more, about the deplorable, lamentable and yes one could say ‘criminal’ state of affairs for British East Asian Artists. More movement, realistic engagement, instigation for change and equality has occurred in the short time since the BEAA (British East Asian Artists Group) was founded in 2012 then in all the previous years. Through the efforts and campaigning of the BEAA (British East Asian Artists Group) East Asians now find themselves at the table in vital and essential talks with the very institutions that have hitherto seemingly ignored British East Asians, such as the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) and Politicians. The BEAA actively supports both Act For Change and the TV Collective and has been instrumental in getting involved and achieving representation in talks with Ed Vaizey MP and the BBC.

The Arts Council of England published the findings of an independent report claiming that the arts and culture sector accounts for 0.4% of gross domestic product, with £5.9 billion worth of gross value added to the UK economy in 2011. London theatres enjoyed record ticket attendances and revenues in 2013, generating £97.5m of VAT receipts for the UK Treasury. Attendances for 2013 were up 4% on 2012 to 14,587,276 with gross sales rising by 11% year on year to £585.5m, according to the figures from the Society of London Theatre.

On stage in 2013 was an amazing year for British East Asian Artists:
The Arrest of Ai Weiwei at The Hamsptead Theatre in April. Chimerica in May at the Almeida Theatre then transferring to the Westend The Harold Pinter Theatre. Yellowface at The Park Theatre in May and then the Royal National Theatre at the Shed, The Fu Manchu Complex written by British East Asian actor, writer and activist Daniel York in September, The World of Extreme Happiness at The Royal National Theatre in The Shed in October and Golden Child at The New Diorama. It was an explosion of East Asian talent on stage and off. The productions found audiences. People bought tickets and put their bums on the seats. Audiences the mirrored the variety and diversity of the British population. People went to see shows about East Asians, with East Asian themes. And shock horror performed by British East Asian actors. Two things it can’t now be said there are no East Asian performers – or yes there are but then consistently only concentrating interest a small meagre handful of performers.

Secondly, no longer can it be said, “oh there isn’t an audience for such plays.”

Britain is a diverse and mixed country in terms of the people who now inhabit these shores.

In London, the 2011 Census, London’s population was 8.17 million, making it the most populous European city. More than 4 out of every ten Londoners (42 per cent) identify themselves as belonging to another group other than Caucasian. What everyone thinks about this state of affairs is an entirely different matter. Britain is not going to suddenly revert back to being a predominantly Caucasian country, sorry (well actually I am not) UKIP et all. The world has moved on, literally and so has its people from country to country, crossing continents and time zones.

So why hasn’t the British culture, our Theatre, Film and Television moved to reflect the diversity we see on our streets? I can’t believe that in the popular media I don’t regularly see characters the reflect me. I’m not talking about the odd Chinese waiter, tongue tied tourist, or the occasional Doctor or Surgeon or even overseas student.

When I turn on my TV, when I see another East Asian, it’s usually a characterisation from a very narrow perspective. Seldom do I see myself, or people who look like like me, portrayed in an accurate and realistic manner, let alone as being British. I have to make do with the heavily accented, menial and or illegal worker. Occasionally there’ll be a Doctor, a secretary or a nerdy student. Apparently there is no in between. As an East Asian more times than not, you’re isolated, socially separated by language, culture and ingrained biggatory.

As an overseas East Asian character you’re allowed to be intelligent, successful and financially well off, but you can also be ruthless, dodgy and somehow an inherently flawed human being. But on the upside you’ll be seen as authentic.

I’m standing right in front of you, as are many others, with not a “me no spleakie” accent, DVD seller or Machiavellian master of crime to be seen anywhere.

Is this continued white washing, an attempt to keep the British cultural landscape western and Caucasian? Is it an almost subliminal subconscious last stand? The last vestiges of institutional and structural racism? An attempt by the old guard in society to divide and rule and thereby some how keep the colonials in their place?

It’s not as if there aren’t the talented and trained East Asian artists out there. Where we fall down is the inability, or lack of willingness on the part of the British media to embrace East Asians. Unlike their colleagues of Black British and British Asian heritage who have been incorporated (to some degree) into the cultural landscape. Comedy shows and serials have been set around or based on their respective communities. Characters from specific ethnicities that draw the audience into an alternative view of British life.

The Fosters (1976-1977), Black Silk (1985), South of the Border (1988), Goodness Gracious Me (1988-2014), Desmond’s (1989-1994), Prime Suspect 2 (1992), The Kumars at nos. 42 (2001-2006), 55 Degrees North (2004–2005), Luther (2010-2013).

The East Asians have had Johnny Ho in the Chinese Detective (1981 – 1982) and that’s it.

It doesn’t happen often enough across the diverse spectrum of British society. The tragedy is why has this not progressed? The world continues to evolve but British popular media and drama apparently does not or will not? When will I be able to see The Lees from nos.8 or Penny Fields or what about Jean and Enid a black comedy set in an OAP home where the central character, Jean (imaginatively nick-named Chinese Jean by the nursing staff) forms an unlikely friendship with Enid new Staff nurse. If you’re interested in the latter then leave me a message and I’ll happily send over a synopsis or meet with you and talk.

I don’t want to be here in another thirty years still talking about the same issues.

As Anna Chen writer, political blogger, performance poet, stand up comedian and BEAA activist recently wrote: "For someone who’s pretty hard to miss, I’m surprisingly invisible. There’s a whole load of us feeling the same way, and we’re getting behind Act for Change."

Attitudes have to change, in the boardrooms, casting suites and commissioning offices.

Something has got to give, I hope that this is the beginning.

Read Lucy Sheen's full article here

When does humour stop being funny and morph into racism? By actress Lucy Sheen.

When does humour stop being funny and morph into racism?

By actress Lucy Sheen

I have a sense of humour. A pretty good one, sometimes it goes a little dark. Hell I loved Nighty Nighty the deeply dark and disturbing comedy by Julia Davis. I even ended up in the second series! Other times it can be very infantile. I don’t think I get overly precious about stuff. I’ve been known to take the proverbial out of myself on many occasions. Our family motto (long story for another time) is:
Si omnia cetera fallunt utique, potest tamen se derideri
If all else fails, at least we can still laugh at ourselves.

I can laugh at a good joke and groan at the Christmas-cracker ones, like everyone else.

Recently though, the way that some people’s funny bones have been digging me in the ribs, I could have been forgiven for thinking I was back in the 1970s. Bernard Manning, Love They Neighbour, The Black and White Minstrel show and Mind Your Language and me dreading school on the Monday. I didn’t have to be a psychic to know that I’d be in for a verbal battering. I’d hope that the battering would remain just that, verbal.

Every Saturday night as a young child, I would be sat down along with the rest of the family to watch The Black and White Minstrel show. Yes, you heard me correctly. Back in the 60s there were only three TV channels. Children watched what the grown ups watched. Did I understanding what was going on? Hey you’re asking a, transracially adopted, East Asian child; who for a while thought that she was actually white! So you’re asking the wrong person.

It was the same for Mind Your Language. I’d watch along with the rest of the “family” but would feel distinctly uncomfortable. I’d spend more time watching my adoptive parents out of the corner of my eye, as they laughed at the linguistic and cultural ineptness of Chung Su-Lee and Tarō Nagazumi. My adoptive parents laughed unreservedly at the images they saw on the small screen. They were laughing at, not with, people who looked just like me.

As a child I was unable to coherently express my discomfort. Even if I could have, I wouldn’t have been allowed. Children in that era were still seen and not heard. I couldn’t verbalise my dislike of that program or why. It was the exact same feeling of discomfort and dis-ease I experienced when I had to pass by the local National Front office. Something I did as little as possible.

Taking the mickey out of people is a national past-time. So is the building up of people only to knock ‘em down. The British media loves doing this and it would appear that the British public love reading about it. So when does this, at times, aggressive jocularity turn from biting humour, into racism?

Is it possible to de-construct the interlocking subtle (sometimes not so subtle) strands that interweave into that which we find, or do not find funny?
Humour is subjective, after all differing cultures find differing things funny.

In an internet study about jokes, countries such as Britain, Australia and New Zealand preferred jokes that involved word play:
What happens to a frog’s car when it breaks down?
It gets toad away.

Americans and Canadians seemed to prefer jokes based on, or that had a sense of superiority – either because a person looked stupid, or was made to look stupid by another person, such as:

Cooper, Gary (Texan, The)_01
Texan: “Where are you from?”
Harvard grad: “I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
Texan: “Okay – where are you from, jackass?”

Many European countries, like France, Denmark and Belgium, enjoyed jokes that were more surreal:

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote:
“Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”
The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”
“But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”

Humour, nonconformist, varied and not one for following rules. So is it the case that one person’s idea of humour is another person’s insult? Or is there more to the conundrum of humour, than culture, personal taste and what is generally perceived by the society you live in as acceptable?
The definition of humour is actually very interesting.
hu·mor
(h)yo͞omər – noun
noun: humour

1. the quality of being amusing or comic, especially as expressed in literature or speech

2. a mood or state of mind

verb
verb: humour
1.comply with the wishes of (someone) in order to keep them content, however unreasonable such wishes might be.
The definition of humour as a verb is the most interesting and possibly the most pertinent to my initial question. Which makes me wonder even more about the general nature and application of humour.
I have always found jokes that rely on turning a person’s race, ethnicity or colour against themselves, making it a negative, unacceptable trait in society. I don’t find that kind of humour funny. I find nothing humorous in making a person seem abnormal, less than human, devaluing a person’s humanity because the colour of their skin is a different shade. Or the shape of their eyes or lips are different. That to me is not humour, it’s a systemic attempt to maintain a racist and biased view to continue to keep a society content with itself no matter how unreasonable that might be.

There will be those that say I’m reading too much into things. A joke is just a joke, it doesn’t mean anything. But that sounds suspiciously like the verbal prefacing that comes before a racist comment.

If I hear the term Chink, Coolie* or Oriental** I find it offensive. Yes it does depend upon context. In an academic or historical work examining Colonial or the Imperialist world, I get it. As a joke or in a comedy skit nine times out of ten I find it offensive. To me as a British East Asian, it offends me every bit as much as the n-word offends a black person. The word Chink, the term Oriental, these are not words or terms of endearment. It isn’t like saying, “me old china.” Where there would be a double and possible humours meaning as it’s Cockney rhyming slang for mate. No, these words are used to cause insult, to belittle, to demean, to racially slur. These words are meant to be derogatory, to demean, and devalue people like me because I look different. Because my ancestors were treated and viewed in a very specific manner in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And because, even now in the 21st century, people who like me, we are still considered alien, outsiders, those that are “other.” You only have to think back to the recent BBC- Jeremy Clarkson debacle a recent example of such supposed “humour.”

British East Asians numerically are not as great as their Black British and Asian (South Asian) British counterparts. In my humble opinion, Black and South Asian British are not consistently and routinely excluded from the general debates and concerns that surround British Asian Minority Ethnics. We are, as far as I can see, the only ethnic minority where it is still, in some people’s minds ok to pass racist comments in the guise of comedy or art. I think that we are the only minority in the UK where socially and publicly you can get away with broadcasting material that is offensive. Whether that’s racist jokes or Yellowface in stage productions. Why, because British East Asians don’t complain. We are our own worst enemies. I still see (more often than I should) on national television people passing offensive and racist comments based on my ethnicity. Yet these incidents are “laughed” of as having been meant in an affectionate manner. Let me tell you there is nothing affectionate about Chink jokes, or being referred to as a Chink, Coolie or Oriental. There is absolutely no reason for any theatre productions, Film, TV or radio programme to be practising Yellowface or Yellowvoice.

Yellowface is far more than a Caucasian putting on yellow make up or taping back their eyes to make themselves look more like an East Asian. It is a systemic, institutionalised and structural bias against East Asians and against engaging professional East Asian artist to play roles that are East Asian. It is the depiction of East Asian roles by Caucasian producers, directors, writers and other gatekeepers; those who control the representation of East Asians in the British media and popular British culture, those who make the casting decisions that propagate the continuance of racist East Asian stereotypes and caricatures.

That is not to say that other ethnic minorities have not suffered – or that people have not tried Blacking up or Brownface.

The stark difference is, there have been attempts to do this on a British stage. There have been and there were protests. Questions have been and would have been asked in the House of Commons. There would be, there has been wide-spread condemnation of such archaic artistic practices. But when it comes to the British East Asians - NADA.

And it has happened in the recent past and those of us who have complained were told, go away.

We were told that Yellowface just wasn’t the same as blacking up.
We’ve recently been told by TV Producer that the use of the word SLOPE, although it was understood to be offensive to East Asians; because it wasn’t thought to be widely used or known in the UK, they’d still use it. Why? Because using it here, in the UK, they could fool themselves into thinking its usage was “witty” a clever play on words and therefore non offensive. I also think that the general perception of East Asians in the UK is, they won’t complain. There are too few of us to matter. So they can get away with it, like they always have. Shock horror, I have news for everyone out there that thinks like that, NOT ANY MORE.

So, excuse me if I’m sceptical about the basic ins and outs of humour which is reliant on the use, as far as I can see, of racist stereotypes and caricatures. I personally do not speak (to any small degree of proficiency) Mandarin or Cantonese. I am not small, petite, servile or quiet. I do not work in a Chinese takeaway or restaurant, I am not a maths guru or proficient in computer programming language. Though I used to practice martial arts. I do not speak English with an accent that would make me the butt of a bad joke. I can pronounce all the consonants found in the English language. I am loud and outspoken, when I need to be. All of which I do in the Queen’s glorious English.

As soon as you purposefully target another human being for not being like the culturally dominant; as soon as you imply that people who are not superficially akin to the dominant race in your society, who don’t share the common vocal or physical characteristic, or that people who are different from the majority in your society are somehow less than human and have a lower value in your society - for me that’s not humour.

That’s abuse, that’s racism, that’s setting up behaviours which I consider unacceptable, that society then passes on to the following generations.

If you can substitute another word for Chink or Oriental and the joke still gets a laugh, then my question is, why are you choosing to use those words in the first place?

Read the whole piece with illustrations at Lucy Sheen's website.

Question for the Act for Change Conference: are the political dangers in keeping East Asian British minority invisible fully understood?

Hackney-born Chinese British punk Anna Chen kicks up. Pic by Bob Carlos Clarke

Act For Change Conference, Young Vic Theatre
30th June 2014
Chair: Shami Chakrabarti
Panel: Julie Crampsie, BBC casting director; Steve November, Head Of ITV programming; writer Stephen Poliakoff; film producer Allison Owen; and Ewan Marshall, former artistic director of Graeae Theatre Company.

Dear Act for Change Conference panel,

I would like to ask if the panel is aware of the dangerous political aspect of keeping East Asian Britons (BEA) invisible and excluded in the culture.

How being a blank canvas means that governments can divert social anger onto you.

There have been several occasions when there have been attempts to scapegoat British East Asians out of political expediency, such as the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak in 2000/2001. When the outbreak was clearly out of the government's control — with images of burning pyres of livestock, and farmers committing suicide — someone from the now defunct Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) briefed Valerie Elliott of The Times that the outbreak was started by Chinese restaurants in Northumberland.

This was an absurd accusation of a minority based on no evidence whatsoever: just pure prejudice. However, all the mainstream press ran with it except, notably and honourably, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Ian Burrell of The Independent. Broadsheets and tabloids alike carried lurid headlines such as, “Sheep and Sow Source”. Nationwide fury towards the government over their incompetence was diverted onto a small innocent group.

It was possible for the accusation to stick in an unquestioning media environment for several scary months, during which there was intimidation, ostracism, threats, spitting and a build-up to physical attacks on Chinese in places like Cumbria, precisely because we are dehumanised by our invisibility. The association of minorities with filth and pestilence has some dangerous precedents in world history, and it is shocking to see that it can be done so swiftly here.

We are a blank canvas upon which anyone can project their own inner demons.

Fortunately, our efforts to challenge the perverse narrative peddled by politicians and press were successful. A delegation of Chinese representatives from across the community had meetings with Nick Brown, the MAFF minister, pointing out the obvious: that there was no scientific basis for the slur. For the first time ever the Chinese went on strike and closed Chinatown. A thousand of us marched to the MAFF offices where Nick Brown vindicated us in front of the world's cameras.

By continuing to collude in this invisibility, the various cultural bodies help to create a climate where social unrest, fears and anger, can be directed onto us.

We are part of the fabric of British society, not an exotic add-on. We expect to be treated as such. Does the panel understand the importance of this?

On a personal level, I was born and raised in Hackney, east London. I was perhaps the first Chinese British punk, hanging out at Vivienne Westwood's shop with other bright disaffected kids in the 1970s. I am as British as they come but I am constantly made to feel like an outsider. I do not want East Asian invisibility and exclusion to continue to adversely affect further generations of British youth.

Read BEA FAQ for the BBC

Actress Lucy Sheen on "Why-am-i-not-feeling-the-liberte-egalite-fraternite-for-british-east-asians".

BEA FAQ for the BBC, casting directors and general media

Originally posted along with the BBC robo-letter, British East Asian FAQ for the BBC, casting directors, the media and anyone working in areas where diversity is an issue gets its own page here.

FAQ about BEAs for the benefit of the BBC, casting directors and reviewers.

Q: Is it true that East Asians can only play East Asians?

A: East Asian people are said to possess a wide range of human emotions. If you are nice to them, they are often nice back. If you are horrid, they may very well get cross. If, for example, you are in an accident, you may be lucky enough to find East Asians willing to call an ambulance, staunch the bleeding and tie a tourniquet, clear your airways, crack a joke to cheer you up and phone your mum to let her know you may be some time. In real life in the UK we find Chinese bus drivers, Korean traffic wardens, Thai teachers, plus scientists, lawyers and doctors from a whole slew of East Asian origins. Look out for them — we're sure you'll find them.

Q: Is it true that only East Asians can play East Asians?

A: Yes, when white actors play East Asians — such as John Wayne as Genghis Khan, Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi or Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp — it is called "yellowface". Like "blackface" before it, it is considered bad form by nice people who would not kick a puppy or drown a kitten or otherwise do anything horrid to another sentient being.

Q: Do East Asians have lives outside the takeaway, snakehead gangs and business?

A: Should the takeaway, the restaurant and the casino in your drama already have their full complement of ethnic characters, you may well find other areas where East Asians would fit right in. Having a complicated romance, for example. Discovering a cure for cancer. There's a Chinese doctor whose mitochondrial DNA research proves we all walked out of Africa 70-100 thousand years ago. Think of any human endeavour and we bet you could find an East Asian who has already done it or who is working on it.

Q: Is it true that some East Asians have regional British accents?

A: Human beings tend to absorb and reflect their environment. With over 500,000 Chinese and East Asians in Britain, we think it is likely that some of them will speak Cockney, Scouse, Brummie, Glasgie and so forth.

Q: Do all East Asians do kung fu?

A: Yes. This is something we try and deny to throw you off the scent that we are coming for you.

Q: Is it true that East Asians are all clever?

A: No. Emphatically, no. Did I mention no?

Q: Do East Asians have hobbies or do they unplug themselves when they aren't working in the takeaway or selling dodgy DVDs or hacking?

A: Pertaining to the answer above, you can find them writing poetry, painting and drawing, having tragic romances, raising children, keeping pets and fighting da man.

Q: Are there any East Asians training to be actors? We just don't have a wide enough pool of talent to draw from.

A: Ah, you must be a casting director. Contrary to the myth, there have been Chinese actors in Britain since Burt Kwouk was in short pants and Tsai Chin's dialogue was conducted mostly in short pants for the very varied roles afforded her as Suzy Wong and Juicy Lucy, neither of her characters rocket scientists, sadly. We are confident that a cursory investigation of our drama schools will appraise you as to the number of trained East Asian actors emerging to join those who have been here long time.

Q: European actors have so much character — how can East Asians possibly compete?

A: Acting is a very competitive business but East Asian actors are certainly able to “compete” with their Caucasian counterparts. They no longer have to do this by scrunching up their eyes and doing that buck-tooth smiley thing so beloved of Hollywood back when the world was black and white, and the BBC right up to Sherlock: the reboot. There are more roles in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than the Spooks, Fu Manchu and China dolls dreamt of in your philosophy. A cunning ability to make bad Mandarin sound like good Mandarin to BBC ears will also ensure that one day the said East Asian actor will certainly be able to “compete” with the likes of Benny Cumberbatch and Olly Coleman for all those fantastic quality drama roles once you realise that China is a juicy ol' market, a piece of which you might just want one day.

Q: How come East Asians do submissive nookie so well?

A: We learned this at our grandmothers' tiny lotus feet, grasshopper, and imbibed it with our mothers' milk. Or our wet-nurses' milk if you happen to be a Chinese oligarch. Ha! Only choking. Some might say you were just too darn lazy or lacking in imagination to create, say, a working-class Chinese woman, bright, sparky and political with no business sense whatsoever, who dreams of a better world where we are all equal. Oh ... that would be me.

Q: Doesn't the actor have to reflect the character they portray and include things like ethnicity as well as wider considerations of age, gender, physical appearance and so on?

A: Sometimes we suspect you are just too stupid to do this job and perhaps you shouldn't be clogging up the works with your seething prejudice. At other times, we just think maybe you should get out more. To answer your question, yes, which is why Laurence Olivier made such a good Othello.

The Fairy Princess Diaries: When the BBC told the BEAs to take a Slow Boat to China….

Open letter from the British East Asian Artists in response to the BBC letter.

Restaging Revolutions: alternative theatre on Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge tonight 5pm, Resonance 104.4FM

Tonight live at 5pm on Resonance 104.4FM, Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge's guests are Dr Susan Croft and Neil Hornick of The Phantom Captain theatre company.

Presented by Anna Chen. Charles Shaar Murray rides shotgun.

The alternative theatre movement in Britain was a post-war explosion of talent and ideas that took theatre to the masses in the two decades from 1968. Dr Susan Croft, curator of the Restaging Revolutions exhibition currently on at Holborn Library, talks about this rich cultural period with Neil Hornick, veteran of the movement in his role as founding member and director of The Phantom Captain theatre company.

With clips from The Phantom Captain's productions.

Unfinished Histories website — a great resource for the period.

Listen live (click on the Resonance FM widget in the sidebar) or afterwards online.

Full set of Madam Miaow on Resonance FM.

Resonance 104.4FM

The RSC Orphan of Zhao: one year on, East Asian British in the arts

BEAA founding members at Opening The Door, L to R: Michelle Lee, Lucy Sheen, Anna Chen, Jennifer Lim, Paul Hyu, Amanda Rogers, Kathryn Golding and Daniel York

February 11th marks the first anniversary of the groundbreaking Opening the Door event at the Young Vic. This was the first positive concrete step offered by a slice of the UK theatre establishment following the international protest led by East Asian British artists in response to the Royal Shakespeare Company's shocking yellowface casting for their first Chinese play, The Orphan of Zhao.

Despite the play being sold as the RSC's "Chinese Hamlet", and their marketing being directed at the Chinese — with promotion in Chinese and featuring an East Asian poster boy — the RSC cast only three minor parts out of 17 with east Asians even though this country has a fine pool of East Asian British (BEA) acting talent such as Benedict Wong, Gemma Chan, Lucy Sheen and Daniel York, among others.

You can also watch the British East Asian Artists (BEAA)— who came together at the outbreak of Zhaogate hostilities to fight this significant battle — discussing the state of play with the Asian Performing Arts Forum in these videos: Part 1 and Part 2.

BEAA founding members at Opening the Door, Young Vic, 11 Feb 2013, clockwise from bottom left: Hi Ching, Michelle Lee, Lucy Sheen, Chowee Leow, Amanda Rogers and Jennifer Lim.

For background information, read the chronology of The Orphan of Zhao controversy. 

BEAA open letter to Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey.

Lucy Sheen on the RSC Orphan of Zhao campaign one year on.

Press pick up on the BEAA letter to Ed Vaizey.

BEAA Facebook and website.