Your play, The Society for New Cuisine, explores deep themes like capitalism, mental health, and East and South East Asian manhood through a dark, Buddhist-inspired lens. What was the personal or cultural inspiration behind crafting such a unique and thought-provoking narrative?

It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem. I went through a pretty heart-breaking relationship end, and it got dark. In that darkness, I did a bunch of things and nothing really helped me look at the question of whether I was a good person – until eventually, something did, and it was Tibetan Buddhism. I read a book by a monk named Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and that led to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and then to Lama Thubten Yeshe, and Venerable Robina Courtin.

In one of these books – there’s a lecture by Lama Thubten Yeshe – the heart of it is ‘When we are little , we crave ice-cream chocolate and cake, and we think, if only we get enough ice-cream, chocolate and cake, then we shall be happy. Now we are older, and we can have all the ice-cream chocolate and cake we want, but still we are not happy, not instead we want Cars, and Jobs, a Husband/Wife, a lovely house, Avocado Toast, then we shall be happy. Why aren’t we happy?

Lama Thubten uses that speech to encourage people to study Buddhism. I use that speech to have our bad guy seduce the HERO into doing something bad. Spoiler spoiler.

The play’s premise—cutting off and eating parts of oneself—feels both visceral and metaphorical. How do you hope audiences will interpret this idea, and what conversations do you want to spark?

Cutting parts of your life away is a virtue. Self-denial and discipline are venerated as virtues. Being single-minded about money, or career, or physique is pretty highly vaunted. What happens when we realise the sacrifices we’ve made along the way make that VIRTUOUS viewpoint empty? 

Consumption – eating, capitalism – there are DEEP links with this throughout myth (thanks Joseph Campbell), we see this in fairytales like Red Riding Hood devouring a girl’s innocence, or the red apple of Sleeping beauty, we see this in Gothic literature like HP LOVECRAFT’s Cthulhu Mythos, we see this in classics like OVID’s METAMORPHOSIS, like in the story of King Erisychthon. More recently; THE SUSTANCE, SQUID GAME, PARASITE.

Y’know, these ideas are pretty deeply embedded. 

I would love folk to leave wondering about their appetites, about their mental health, and whether they are happy with the parts of themselves they cut off and give to others to eat.

You’ve had an impressive career on the West End in major productions like Frozen and Cyrano de Bergerac. How does writing and performing your own work compare to being part of larger ensemble productions?

I’m the boss now, so it just means I’m responsible for more of it. It’s my job to be well-considered, and the SIZE of the job is much much bigger. Being an actor is micro – your concerns are (in a great way) super selfish. Writing and building a PRODUCTION, means you are now macro. If something isn’t thought about, it doesn’t get curated. I have no responsible adults around to take responsibility, it’s all on my shoulders and the shoulders of my friends. Lucky for me, I’ve got some pretty great friends. 

The director for this is Rupert Hands – he’s been a longtime collaborator of Jamie Lloyd’s, Rupert most recently was Resident/Associate director of Sunset Boulevarde on Broadway/West End,and recently had his West End debut as a director OUTRIGHT, in the concert of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Palladium starring Hadley Fraser and Ramin Karimloo. Rupe’s dad was the late and great Terry Hands, former Artistic Director of the RSC.

Rupe is taking this moment in time now to do more Directing outright. More responsibility. He’s pushing, and we’ve assembled a crack design team. Yimei Zhao, Rajiv Pattani, Jamie Lu – these guys are killers.

We are all young and pushing. We want to make excellent theatre. It’s really cool to be responsible for our own quality.

With such a poetic and profound approach to storytelling, do you have any unexpected creative influences—whether in literature, film, or even food?

YES. Tim Crouch, Martin Crimp, Nina Segal, Mike Bartlett (and his 90 million plays), Dennis Kelly, Mark O’Rowe, Terrence Rattigan, Mark Lopez, Harlan Ellison, Duncan Macmillan, Lucy Prebble (the Prebbler herself), Conor Macpherson, Jez Butterworth, Mark Rylance, Sir Antony Sher, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Vinay Patel. Mr Bong Joon-Ho, Mallatratt/Hill, Jack Holden. Jamie Lloyd.

If you let me I’ll keep going. Let me tease one of these out.

Dennis Kelly right?

Book writer for MATILDA with Tim Minchin (Aussie Aussie Aussie), one of the most successful musicals written in the last 100 years. Mr Kelly had never a musical before this. Before this, Mr Kelly had written a series of incredibly beautiful and bitey and dark plays – the crown jewel of which (to me) is THE RISE AND FALL OF GORGE MASTROMAS (Royal Court) – which is so sharp it cuts. A man is shown the secrets behind WINNING capitalism and is empty by the end. Completely and utterly empty. He eats and eats and eats, and eventually eats himself. How did he get picked to meet with Mr Minchin? Fascinating right?

I think one of the cool things about this world of playwriting is, there are SO MANY ways that people can find their style and voice – there are so many levers to pull. Part of it is being brave enough to write something that is human and considered and individual. I think good playwrights listen and read 99% of the time, and write for 1. 

This piece is collected from little tiny bits that I’ve stolen from EVERYBODY. 

If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to experience The Society for New Cuisine, who would it be and why?

My father when I was 5 years old. 

I wonder if there are things that I could say to my father when he was younger that might have lessened the darkness and turbulence in his heart. 

Looking to the future, what’s next for you as a writer and performer? Are there any other themes or genres you’re excited to explore in your upcoming work?

Rupert and I have a production pencilled for another prominent OFF-WEST END venue for October 2025. This is huge. Two productions in a year! That one is a 7 hander. I’m currently on the SOHO writers program which is curated by the lion-hearted Jules Haworth, the vibrant Scharmilla Chauhan and joyful Roy Alexander Weise. That one is about a man who becomes a pigeon. I have two other ideas in various states of development I’m writing on spec, but sometimes I wonder if I’m an overambitious chipmunk, and if it might be better to chew the things in my bulging cheeks before I nibble more food. With great honesty, this is quite enough to be getting on with, and I am fully prepared for my devolution at the end of 2025 into a potato.