REVIEW: Asian Pirate Musical

©️ Photo by Mike Skelton

There is something quietly radical about Asian Pirate Musical. Rather than retelling a historical legend or imagining a distant dystopian future, it chooses to place both on the same ship. History, climate fiction, queer identity and Southeast Asian mythology collide, asking not simply where we are going, but how we carry our past with us as we imagine the future.

Set in 2049, the musical begins with a lone pirate navigating the Straits of Melaka before a violent storm tears through time itself. Stranded aboard the same vessel are five travellers from different centuries: the Ming dynasty explorer Zheng He (Yñaqui Tuason-Inocian), nineteenth-century pirate queen Sek Yeong (Amanda Maud), climate survivor Nazar (Ashley Goh), and twenty-third-century revolutionaries Keliling (Rai Endah) and Riang (Nabilah Hamid). As suspicion slowly transforms into solidarity, their journey becomes less about reaching land than confronting the histories, identities and futures each of them represents.

Under the direction of Zhui Ning Chang, who also co-wrote the book, music and lyrics alongside Frey Kwa Hawking, Jade Leamcharaskul, Sarita Lewis, Nemo Martin and XANA, the production resists a single historical or cultural perspective. The writing moves between East and Southeast Asia, past and future, myth and reality, allowing each character to carry a distinct relationship to power, displacement and belonging.

Led by composer Jade Leamcharaskul and realised by co-musical directors Amy Hsu and Nunt Ruddit, the score carries an extraordinary amount of narrative responsibility. It must connect characters separated by centuries while weaving together traditional Asian instruments, Japanese taiko, Javanese gamelan, contemporary Asian pop, diasporic influences and Western musical theatre vocabulary.

The music frequently operates as another layer of world-building, helping the audience move through dense historical, political and cultural contexts without reducing them to exposition. Its shifting textures reflect the production’s time-travelling structure, with different musical traditions meeting, clashing and gradually finding ways to coexist. Given the breadth of material contained within a two-hour musical, the score’s ability to hold so many worlds together is particularly striking.

The set and costume design by Scamp Niemz, supported by the lighting design of John Chan, makes imaginative use of the venue’s limited dimensions. Through carefully judged scale, projection, texture and movement, the stage expands into an endless ocean, outer space or the remains of a lost city. The design never attempts to reproduce these locations literally. Instead, it offers just enough visual information for the audience to complete each world through imagination, giving the production a sense of scale far beyond the physical size of the room.

As a new musical, the production still has room to develop. Some of the vocal performances would benefit from greater consistency; the amount of material each performer must communicate is considerable, and further development could give the relationships between the five characters greater clarity and depth. The score also feels as though it is waiting to be heard with a live band. Its combination of traditional instruments, percussion, pop influences and musical theatre writing has the potential to become far more immediate when performed live.

Ultimately, Asian Pirate Musical refuses to present Asia as a singular or stable identity. Instead, it embraces contradiction, migration, exchange and historical complexity. By placing real historical figures beside imagined future survivors and revolutionaries, it connects colonial histories, climate anxiety, displacement and queer existence as part of the same unfinished conversation.

Its characters are all searching for a place to belong, but the musical gradually suggests that home may not be something they can simply return to. It must be built through memory, resistance, compromise and collective care.

For a new musical still finding its final form, Asian Pirate Musical is an ambitious voyage, and one well worth continuing to follow

★★★★

For more information, please visit: https://tiny.cc/APMgatehouse

Credits

Book, Music, and Lyrics: Zhui Ning Chang, Frey Kwa Hawking, Jade Leamcharaskul, Sarita Lewis, Nemo Martin, and XANA.

CAST

Zheng He: Yñaqui Tuason-Inocian
Sek Yeong: Amanda Maud
Nazar: Ashley Goh
Keliling: Rai Endah
Riang: Nabilah Hamid

CREATIVE TEAM

Producers: Florian Lim, Nemo Martin
Director: Zhui Ning Chang
Lead Composer: Jade Leamcharaskul
Co-Musical Directors: Amy Hsu and Nunt Ruddit
Choreographer: Wenning Wang
Dramaturg: Frey Kwa Hawking
Production Stage Manager: Ghost Chan
Sound Designer and Mixer: Vincci Chung
Lighting Designer: John Chan 元樟
Set and Costume Designer: Scamp Niemz
Costume Supervisor & Prop Maker: Geremi So
Prop Designer: Mikayla Teodoro
Prop Maker: Naomi (Ruizhi) Zhang
Production Intern: Cas Potterton
Graphic Designer: Syahirah Afifah
Supported by Arts Council England, Lincoln Arts Centre and University of Lincoln,
New Diorama Theatre, Kakilang, and New Earth Theatre.

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