Interview: Barack Obama, the Illuminati and Reservoir Dogs meet New Orleans Jazz

Chris Fung on bringing Global Majority to the Bush Theatre

The Bush Theatre has an exceptional reputation for championing new writing while uplifting diverse demographics and communities. This season the theatre plays host to Global Majority by Chris Fung, an award-winning writer renowned for his socially challenging and dramatically experimental work, such as The Society for New Cuisine, which we gave four stars last year. Excited to hear about his latest venture, we called Chris up for a chat about this brand new show.:

Hi Chris. Thanks very much for stopping by to talk about Global Majority. What can you tell us about the premise of the show?

Brian Tran is attempting to become the first East Asian candidate backed by a major political party for national leadership. He’s got a shot at real power, so the interview also gets…real.

Barack Obama was the first Black US president. Why? What happened to every other Black candidate before him and what were the thresholds that stopped them, but were successfully navigated by President Obama? In the journey of Barack’s historic 2004 run, he visited with many powerful Black and white politicians all through the US. How did he begin as an outside shot and end up the winner?

I took the spine of this idea, and mixed it with the Illuminati, my understanding of the UK theatre ecology, the Royal family, Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Thich Quang Duc’s extraordinary sacrifice, Black Mirror, Succession, Preservation Hall New Orleans Jazz, and the works of Jamie Lloyd.

It’s a fun night out for all the family!

What prompted you to write this play and how has the process been, bringing the initial idea from page to stage?

2023. I’m heartbroken and backpacking across the US. I am spending all my money at Preservation Hall, this sweaty, old wood, standing room only bastion of Dixieland jazz. A temple of groove. I’m reading Obama’s memoir A Promised Land, and visiting slave plantations and museums, and there’s a tipping point – I am compelled: I must write, so I lock myself in a cheap hostel and I write, and I write. Beignets and whiskey. RIP waistline.

2024. I’m fortunate to receive an ACE grant for 30k to develop (thank you @aceagrams). Two week workshop, actors, Attenborough Arts Centre (hello John Kirby), Norden Farm Maidenhead, and director Rupert Hands. He’s in rehearsals for Sunset Boulevard starring Scherzy. We meet at a coffee shop outside the Savoy, and he shows me a sketch of the set. He tells me I can’t have a full band. I tell him his sense of fashion reminds me of a rubbish tip.

2025. Dramaturgy and development. One million prospective conversations. ACE grant applications. The darkness. Fifty different drafts. Many rejections. I’m buoyed by tablereads and friends and Camino Meets. Hello Titilola Dawudu. Hello Felix Mosse! Hello Rupert! Hello Eilidh Evans!

2026. We win a 50k ACE grant to put this on. Seven weeks at the Bush. Visionary Artistic Director Taio Lawson’s inaugural season. True co-production, Bush are in for half.

I’m told that ordinarily, runs at the Bush Main House are two to four weeks, we have seven. The Bush are in many ways perfect. A dream house. All this because a BUNCH of people are excited by this script and the possibility of this production. Hugely grateful.

If you ever get the chance to talk to Taio, the man is a whirlwind of charisma. He has an intention. He’s running at a glittering horizon. Watch the Bush. They are making moves. Executive Director Angela is lighting a beacon-fire. Their acumen is a clarion call for excellence.

What do the cast bring to the production?

They surprise me. One of the most important things in a production is to find humans to spiritually galvanise the machine. And these guys are PACKED WITH FLAVOUR AND FUNK. Casting Director Stuart Burt has a growing reputation as one of the most exciting and influential casting professionals in the world. He found some real villains. Poppy, Cade, Ed, Jeremy – are phenomenal. They make me want to put on an old record and dance.

I’m writing this at the start of our third week of rehearsals. I’m ecstatic. I have the feeling of a coiled spring. We collectively have been storing and finding excellences that we are going to surprise people with. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody will expect us.

You have the incredible Rupert Hands as director for the show, who has an impeccable pedigree, including working in the West End and alongside Jamie Lloyd. How did you come to work together?

I have credits as a performer. Rupert was my boss on my first two shows in this country – Jamie Lloyd’s Evita at Regents Park, and then Cyrano de Bergerac at the Playhouse. Rupert was Associate and Resident on both, and responsible for the Understudies. I was an Understudy. Rupert was responsible for me.

Since then, I have gradually been throwing bits of writing to him, and then we argue about what dramaturgy is, and about privilege and things that are funny, and his favourite directors and writers, and why I think his taste is nonsense, and bit by bit we have gotten to know each other.

And now, in this period of time where Rupert is directing more under his own banner, we are collaborating on a number of pieces I have written. The first was The Society for New Cuisine, Global Majority is two, and on 11 December, Rupert will direct an industry sharing of Frank and Jen.

This year, I was fortunate to win two nationally resonant playwriting awards: Global Majority won the Ilfeld Prize, and Frank and Jen won Soho Theatre’s Tony Craze. 

How cool to grow with folk.

We’ve seen from The Society for New Cuisine that you like a bit of an edge to your work, so what can you share about how Global Majority will be staged?

Rupert has told me that I may not, under any circumstances, give away any of the surprises that he, and sharp-brained phenomenally talented set-designer Peiyao Wang, have prepared. 

Peiyao has underlined that she also thinks this a good thing.

I have great respect for Peiyao, and so respectfully I must decline your wonderful question. I would however like to take a moment to highlight the exquisite work of Yimei Zhao who you mentioned above as having built the set for The Society for New Cuisine. I agree with you wholeheartedly, that set was extraordinary.

I think that the best writing is a playground for other team members to do their thing. In the writing, you set rules for the world, and that world can either have much more lurid possibility or less. It can be a tiny planet. Thank you Elinor Fuchs (hello Iskandar Sharazuddin!).

It’s exciting to see your work being staged at the amazing Bush Theatre: why does this venue particularly suit your style?

The Bush is one of the most powerful houses in the world for new writing.

There is a history here, where successive leadership teams of the Bush have served two parallel societal concerns incredibly well, concerns that many view as contrasting, but are actually deeply complementary: Championing narratives from underserved communities/creatives, alongside a deep track record of producing some of the most commercially successful and theatrically innovative work.

It’s funky. They dare. There is groove baked into the stones here.

That’s what Taio Lawson is about too.

Tell us about your company Fun Guy Theatre and how its ethos of community spirit is important to a fringe production like this.

Fun Guy Theatre is for me and my mates.

Since 2022, we’ve been running this initiative called Camino Meets. My buddies help me run it (Hello Eilidh Evans! Christina Ellinas! Clann Erin!). Free, monthly dramaturgy meets for London based low-socio writers and directors and actors, where we cold-read bits of new script and give each other dramaturgy. We talk through how we can build things, and survive, and find flavour. We’ve run full script read-throughs, and hired out theatres where folk get to perform. We share things.

It’s pretty cool. I don’t think it an accident that the folk who regularly come are all tangibly finding momentum. More often now, our members are winning awards, and getting their stuff on, and making it into writing schemes, and getting jobs. 

Mostly, the point is to drink coffee and do cool stuff and help each other get better at the craft of it all. I think that’s the fundamental spirit that makes theatre thrive. Not just for fringe theatre, but all theatre. When money is so light, time so precious, community is not just important, it’s downright crucial.

Finally, what does the future hold for Chris Fung and Global Majority after this run at the Bush?

Global Majority is going to transfer to a high profile UK theatre. We have the theatre confirmed, and a long run in the diary. All the money has been sorted. It’s very exciting. Then we’re going to transfer to the US, before a tour of Singapore, Helsinki and Australia. Also, a company has optioned it for Norway.

I’m not lying per se. It’s just that none of the above are true yet. But they will be. This is what is going to happen.

Dec 3 is the opening night of Global Majority.

Dec 11, I have a full sharing of Frank and Jen at Soho Theatre as part of winning the Tony Craze. That piece has some madness behind it.

I’m the Associate Playwright for Manchester based Ransack Theatre, and we’re working on a piece about British dairy farmers. Piers and Ali, the two lion-hearted humans who run Ransack are pretty brilliant, and we’re exploring the idea of building it as we go.

This year, I was part of the VIGOROUS Criterion New Writing program run by Greg and Felix Mosse. I built a piece called THOSE WHO CAN’T TEACH, which my team and I are looking to continue to develop.

Finally there’s this twinkly-eyed and galaxy brained director Jasmine Teo, who is currently a Staff Director at the National, and she and Peiyao Wang and I are tinkering with the idea of something.

We doing things!

Thanks very much to Chris for giving us this sneak peek into what promises to be a really exciting piece of work. Global Majority runs at the Bush Theatre from Wednesday 25 November to Saturday 16 January.