REVIEW: The Pillow, The Sun and The Dinosaur - Travelling Through Memory and Love

Some stories don’t unfold in a straight line. They drift, hover, dissolve, then stitch themselves back together like patches of dream and memory. The Pillow, The Sun and The Dinosaur is one of those stories.

Centred on Bobo, a young girl growing up with her granny, this new writing piece by Baihan Liao challenges audiences to see cognitive decline not as a tragedy, but as a different way of remembering, loving, and staying connected. In this play, time is torn into fragments and reassembled with emotional thread, guiding the audience through a rich, imaginative journey where fantasy and reality blur.

At the heart of the story is eight-year-old Bobo (played with endearing clarity by Chen Xu), whose bedtime tales with her granny are more than just ritual. Granny introduces her to the magical world of Benda Nemo, where the dinosaur soars as a symbol of creativity. In Bobo’s childhood, Granny is the sun that glows with love, and the pillow becomes a symbol of courage against nightmares.

As Bobo grows older, so do her questions - how to stand up to bullying, how to recover from heartbreak, and how to carry on when dreams slip away. Yet through it all, her grandmother remains a constant, the sun that never stops shining, even when memory fades.

Bessie Wang’s portrayal of the grandmother is warm and deeply affecting. She delivers life philosophy with the softness of someone who has known joy and loss, and whose love endures even as her grasp on names and faces slips. Even in confusion, she shows kindness to the girl who reminds her of her granddaughter, reminding us that emotional memory often survives long after the factual disappears.

The dinosaur (played by Jie Liu) appears every now and then as a mischievous figure who breaks the fourth wall and interacts with the audience. While conceptually clever, the execution of these moments occasionally felt forced, perhaps a symptom of opening night nerves. Still, the dinosaur remains a valuable part of the story’s symbolic language. Jie Liu also switches fluidly between other roles, including the mother and the doctor, bringing each character with just enough detail to feel lived-in, while never stealing focus from the central bond between Bobo and Granny.

©️ Photo by Musca Ni

©️ Photo by Musca Ni

©️ Photo by Musca Ni

The Pillow, The Sun and The Dinosaur shines in its rich detail: Bobo’s essay on Spiderman, toys made of plastic bottles, her research on Alzheimer’s, Granny’s memory box, and the photograph hidden inside a pillow. These glimpses are vivid and moving, though some feel like beautiful threads left untied. With tighter narrative integration, the story could reach even deeper emotional resonance.

The stage (designed by Zidi Wu) is dressed in warm-toned fabric strips stitched across the space like memory itself, dotted with tiny lights that evoke the quiet intimacy of home. Delicate music-box melodies and the occasional ring of a distant bell anchor the dreamscape during transitions, by Sound Designer Belle Bao, grounding it in lived experience.

Ultimately, this production isn’t just about Alzheimer’s. It’s about how families hold each other when the world becomes uncertain, and how storytelling is what keeps us close, like a warm embrace that memory cannot erase.

©️ Photo by Musca Ni

Cast

Granny: Bessie Wang
BOBO: Chen Xu
Dinosaur, Doctor, Mother: Jie Liu (Sunny)

Creatives

Director & Playwright: Baihan Liao
Associate Director: Belle Bao
Movement Director: YY Yong
Co-Producer: Summer Yahan Xue, Sally Xu
Production Manager: Rongqi Cui (Ricky)
Scenographer: Zidi Wu
Lighting Designers: Shawn Lu & Zidi Wu
Stage Manager: Tianai Zhou
Sound Designer: Belle Bao
Digital Media Operator: Jin Xiong
Graphic Designer: Xintong Zou

For more information:
https://www.goldengoosetheatre.co.uk/whatson/production-name-test
https://camdenfringe.com/events/the-pillow-the-sun-and-the-dinosaur/