REVIEW: See it, say it… Salted! - An absurdist diary of London life

©️See It Say It… Salted

If London were to be remembered one trillion years later, what would remain?

See It Say It… Salted takes this question and transforms it into an absurdist stage diary, seen through the eyes of a newly arrived international student. What unfolds feels like a scrapbook of observations: a pigeon still carrying its yellow-sticker supermarket tag, desserts drowning in sugar, or a familiar Supor green rice cooker elevated into a podium for a speech. These moments are small, playful, and strikingly recognisable, a theatre of everyday survival reframed as alien archaeology.

One of the strongest elements of the production is its visual world. The handmade costumes and sets, designed by Freya Yuejie Li, Yi Yi and realised with great care by Hester Xue, create a delightfully absurd but detailed landscape, where pigeons, groceries, and appliances gain strange new authority.

One of the most impressive moments is how the piece captures a future that feels at once familiar and alien. Everyday objects are transformed into witnesses of the human condition, carrying traces of the lives that used them. There is something both comic and unsettling in the way London is portrayed: present yet distant, mundane yet surreal. The performance feels like an archaeology of our times, not digging up ruins but exposing the fragile ways we struggle to live, endure, and leave a mark.

At its best, See It Say It… Salted is less a play in the traditional sense than an ongoing excavation, a reminder that even the smallest details of daily life, a stickered pigeon, a rotting lettuce, a rice cooker, can reveal the contradictions of existence in a city that is both welcoming and exhausting. It is absurd and tender at the same time, a snapshot of London filtered through the eyes of someone newly arrived, capturing both the humour and the unease of learning how to belong.

★★★★

For more information, please visit: https://camdenfringe.com/events/see-it-say-it-salted/

Credits

Creative Team
Playwright & Director: Jingle Yuxin Jiang
Producer: Ti Ti
Set & Graphic Designer: Yi Yi
Assistant Producer & Marketing: Yunning
Stage Manager, LX&Sound Operator: Pony Junhe Chen
Movement Director: Rudra Bharadwaj
Costume Designer: Freya Yuejie Li
Costume Maker: Hester Xue
Script Consultant: Tianqi Luo

Cast
Pigeon & Lettuce: XueQing
Pigeon & Chief: Shane Cleminson
Doughnut: Karina Xuehan Jiang
Bear & Chief: Lumia
Rice Cooker: Jingle Yuxin Jiang