Review: Golden Fly Bomb, The Cockpit

Sometimes a show will just pass you by. Whilst around you, others are heartily laughing, you are left wondering what it is you are missing. Of course, it’s always possible that those enjoying it are part of the production team or family and friends, so a little bias, but even so, you do start to question if you’ve watched the same show!

That is very much how I feel come the end of Golden Fly Bomb; was I missing something?  Because as those around me clapped, cheered and whooped, I gave my polite applause and made a quick exit. Because, well, I’m just not at all sure about the hour of theatre I’ve just witnessed. Maybe it was a cultural thing, this is after all a show made by Asian creatives and an audience to match; it’s great to see such diversity within a theatre space, so maybe the laughter I struggled to join in with is because this show was tapping into things I just do not have any real knowledge about? The problem, though, is that a review is very much a personal opinion, and mine is that Golden Fly Bomb simply fails to hit home in any meaningful way. 

One immediate problem is that I’m unsure what it was attempting to really say. The show blurb explains it’s a 24-hour journey of searching for meaning. Except it feels like it’s spread over months, and that any meaning was non-existent. We meet A (Jiyeon Song), working at a Japanese Karaoke Bar, smiling in the right places and encouraging the men to buy more drinks, one of whom, the Doctor, takes a real shine to her, and she apparently to him. There are further threads about her dead cat, a mum who is constantly moaning about her daughter neglecting her and how she should just burn her body and be done with it, and her dad, who is sleeping with one of A’s colleagues at the bar. But nothing really seems to connect, or have depth, or hint at the meaning of it all. It’s just a collection of scenes that start, end and move on. 

It’s only towards the end of the hour when A reappears as a horse, and it all starts to become rather surreal that it really begins to get interesting; the meaning is still not obvious, but at least here something is happening. It’s absolutely fine for a show not to make sense; the fringe is full of such shows. Surrealism is great, and utter flights of fantasy are to be applauded, but there must be reason to it.

Earlier in the festival, the show played at the much smaller Barons Court Theatre, and perhaps that space is better suited; here at The Cockpit lone performer Song is stranded in the massive floor space. With little in the way of sets or props and the video screen far behind her, there’s too much space and little to tie the performer to what we see on the screen.  This disconnect is perhaps part of the problem.

Away from the script and choice of venue, there are, though, hints of clever ideas happening. Animated sequences and video demonstrate imagination and playfulness; the closing video sequence hints at a meaning that the rest of the show failed to convey. But come the end, the whole just feels flat, lacking in any real energy or urgency, and certainly no hint of what A is apparently seeking. Instead, I just appreciate that others may have found more in it that I could fathom and wonder if I just needed to understand the intentions of the myriad of creatives involved more clearly to comprehend the show?

Written & Directed by Zhiwei Wu
Dramaturg by Diyu Liu & Yueran Kan
Visual Design by Chenchen Cai
Choreography by Yubing Chen
Lighting Design & Tech by Yuhan Zhao & Yaqi Sun
Composed & Sound Design by Yang Liu, Yancheng Jiang & Yangfan Zhang
Produced by Zoe Yingying Xie, Cheng Qian & Alyssa Tianai Zhou

You can read an interview about the show here.

The Golden Fly Bomb has completed its run at the Camden Fringe.