Review: When the cloud catches colours, Barbican Centre

How are clouds and queerness connected? Clouds drift without anchor, just like the sense of safety for many queer individuals – always floating, fragile, and out of reach. 

When the Cloud Catches Colours, written and directed by Chng Yi Kai, is a piece of verbatim theatre, based on interviews, and performed in English, Mandarin, and Singaporean Hokkien. Presented in the Barbican’s Pit Theatre as part of the Queer East Festival, it brings to a UK audience an exploration of ageing within Asia’s queer communities, reflecting on family, belonging and loneliness. 

The story traces back to 1938, when Section 377A was introduced under British colonial rule in Singapore. The law criminalised male homosexuality for more than eighty years, and though it was repealed in 2022, real safety and acceptance remain elusive. True security is not something that can be granted by law alone. 

E (played by Judy Ngo) has been the sole caregiver for her mother since her father’s death. Her mother not only refuses to accept her queer identity but continues to direct her affection and hopes towards her son, despite his repeated failures. Misogyny is not an abstract idea here, but a daily, tangible wound: being expected to pay her brother’s debts, discovering her brother secretly brought back into the home after prison, and being steadily edged out of the family unit.  

Yet E does not collapse under the weight of this injustice. She founds RedQuEEn!, a space for local queer women to find community, safety, and breath. As her gender-fluid nephew tells her, “Thank you for making it safe for me to be me.” Even when her birth family cannot offer safety, she chooses to build it herself for others who need it. 

Qing (played by Julius Foo) offers a different shape of loneliness. He once had a partner of over twenty years and a place that felt like home. But it all evaporated with a single goodbye letter. “If I were straight, divorcing at this age would be normal, and I could start again,” he mutters. But as a gay man in his fifties, he finds no one he can confide in, no ready place to mourn or rebuild. 

After years of self-imposed isolation, Qing begins to let go. He volunteers at a home for elderly people. He walks outside the bubble not to restore his former life, but to find belonging again through connection and service. 

The stage design features a translucent cloth spread across the floor, symbolising the drifting clouds. Throughout the performance, actors build and dismantle small tent-like structures from the cloth, creating fragile, temporary shelters. During scene transitions, voices echo across the theatre, whispering words like “ageing,” “safety,” and “abandon”, while shifting rainbow lights wash across the cloth as if the clouds themselves were catching colours.

Though the verbatim style effectively preserves the authenticity of the interviews, at times the abundance of filler words and conversational phrases makes parts of the narrative feel awkwardly stilted. Additionally, the lack of interaction between the two characters – each speaking mostly in monologue – diminishes some of the potential stage tension. 

When the Cloud Catches Colours does not seek to deliver grand slogans or overtly political rhetoric. Instead, it traces two lonely yet tender lives, quietly posing questions: What does safety truly mean? What does belonging look like? And after abandonment, isolation and drifting, how do we still find the courage to love, and to endure? 

Written by: Chng Yi Kai 
Directed by: Chng Yi Kai 
Produced by: Sarah Tang 
Set Design by: Lim Wei Ling 
Lighting Design by: Genevieve Peck 
Sound Design by: Hee Su Hui 

You can find out more about this show in our recent interview here.

When the cloud catches colours plays at Barbican Centre until Saturday 26 April as part of Queer East Festival.