Britain has good tastes. Its museums and stately homes are full of important cultural objects it has pillaged from across the globe.
In fourteen scenes, Joel Tan’s exciting and entertaining play lets us glimpse the imagined repatriation of one of these objects from the British Museum to a special spot in China that reflects the current power relations in that country.
The show opens with the cries of people trying to escape the grand Old Summer Palace in China, which British soldiers set on fire in 1860, only pausing to loot some of its valuable objects, including the statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin which has found its way into a British Museum display opposite the gift shop.
An activist group calling themselves the "Islington Witches for Radical Change" organises a protest in front of the muslin and rope-bound Guanyin that is reclining in a warm light at one end of the traverse performance space.
The next scene takes us to a guest academic speaking in the museum to an audience and a very uncomfortable host of the event about the ugly history of the museum’s acquisition, including the death of over three hundred servants in the Palace, which British soldiers set on fire after looting.
Meanwhile, a young student haggles with his college professor about his refusal to do a placement at the museum because of the boycott. Of course, the professor sympathises with the boycott, but has to follow the rules.
Nevertheless, the growing protest prompts a private meeting among museum bigwigs to discuss their response, which amounts to suggestions of PR stunts such as a special exhibition or a panel of speakers. It is left to the junior curator to point out that they are ignoring the basic demand to return stolen objects.
The pressure on the museum results in an interesting solution when it is approached by a representative of a rich Chinese businessman who wants to donate funds to deal with the building's central heating. The rep with a strong American accent points out that the businessman has very powerful contacts, and her visit is just a courtesy call about the museum voluntarily making a long-term repatriation of the Guanyin statue at the same time as it receives unpublicised financial benefits.
Money talks, and part two of the show takes us to China where the object spends time in the rich man’s house before being placed in Shanghai’s Pudong airport. In this section, we see the interrogation of a cartoonist, the protest of an ethnic minority and a man being trafficked to some unknown destination.
A versatile cast of six very effectively performs over thirty roles directed by emma + pj. The actor Kaja Chan is particularly impressive at switching her accents from the English junior curator to the American-sounding rep of the rich Chinese businessman and the Chinese-speaking interrogator of the cartoonist.
This highly entertaining political satire of topical issues encourages us to care about and applaud those fighting for the return of objects Britain has stolen from other countries.
As the Chinese representative says to the Museum bigwig:
“Let's put it this way
When you finally return our Guanyin to us.
Who will have died to move it?
Who in Britain will miss it?
And who in Britain will weep?”