The Lamb Disagrees

In Sheep’s Clothing

The Lamb Disagrees

by Eratle Wang

Kibo Productions, at Baron’s Court Theatre until 2^nd December

Review by Gill Martin

Willow is living her worst nightmare.  Not only has she discovered that her boyfriend James is married, but his wife has just been found dead.  And now Willow is prime murder suspect, as the last person who saw her alive.

That’s until Willow realizes: what if she’s actually a token Chinese character in a murder mystery -whodunnit novel?  Can she track down the author, change her destiny and help an uninspiring and uninspired male author with his lazy writing?

This is the intriguing story developed by Eratle Wang in her debut play, The Lamb Disagrees, which has already garnered this year’s Vault Festival Origins Award.

The play opens with a long-distance phone call from anxious Chinese mother to daughter, fretting about the dangers of her living alone in the dangerous city of London with no suitable husband on the horizon.

In the same tiny space of this dark cellar theatre, beneath the Curtain Up pub, is the stereotype setting of a writer with a retro manual typewriter and crumpled discarded sheets of paper.  Author Aaron (Ben Butler) slaves away to find an authentic and original voice for his crime novel.  He fails.  (He rather limply and unconvincingly declares: ‘I became a writer because I care.’)

His attempt at introducing feminism and diversity into his novel relies on creating the character of Willow, a Chinese immigrant (Gawa Leung).

Aaron employs a dating app to meet Lily and quiz her about her experiences as such a woman.  That’s his sloppy idea of research.  In a clever twist she turns the tables on Aaron, putting herself in the driving seat of his stalling whodunnit.  Willow morphs from scapegoat to protagonist.  The helpless muse comes to life to banish the trope of downtrodden, exploited East Asian in a cruel Western world.  She is done with being the object of bullying and control.  Now she is in charge of the narrative.

Wang, a self-confessed huge fan of crime and thriller novels, writes in the programme notes how she is trying to ‘break the stereotype of East Asian female characters always playing the victim role and portray a character who is ambitious and unapologetic, just like me and my friends.’

Ben Butler plays the dual roles of Aaron and the unfaithful husband James while Martina Greenwood effectively plays both the about-to-be-dispatched wife Charlotte and Aaron’s feisty, demanding agent Sam.  Gerrie Skeens doubles as Charlotte’s whisky-swilling failed life-coach mother and a police officer.

Six characters in under sixty minutes is a dizzying turn-around, but with its surprisingly short running time of just 45 minutes – barely a moment to settle into our vintage cinema seats, open the wine gums or down an ale from the saloon bar – the audience has scant opportunity to devour and digest The Lamb Disagrees.  I left wanting more than another slice… but less of the dry ice special effects.

Gill Martin, November 2023

Photography courtesy of Kibo