REVIEW: Youth in Flames, Dare Theatre, EdFringe 2025 ★★★★★

In 2019 Hong Kong, teenage British ‘Third Culture Kid‘ Millie is on a mission – to get drunk, woo bartenders, and find out what the inside of a nightclub actually looks like. Meanwhile, her local friend Jesse is trying to convince her to join the rising tide of student protests against the Extradition Bill, which protestors fear will allow Hong Kongers to be subject to the People’s Republic of China’s justice system. With intense and refined flourish – Mimi Martin and Co at Dare Theatre deliver an unrelenting, poignant snapshot of a city in crisis.

Millie has never really understood where she’s from or where she belongs – the daughter of British parents cavalcaded around the world at the behest of their successful and highly international careers. Martin’s script quickly establishes the ground rules for exploring the piece – Millie is both an outsider with immense privilege and someone who repeatedly finds themselves socially marginalised on the basis of that privilege, as well as because she’s a westerner. Avoiding any self pity – Millie is our lens but far from the only focus of the plot.

Amidst dizzying flashes of light and segments of radio news coverage both in English and Cantonese, Martin weaves a story that is equal parts coming-of-age journey, cultural interpretation, and an emotive political deep-dive into events inspired by real-life experiences during the aforementioned protests. She began writing the play after leaving Hong Kong, inspired by her own experiences as an expat in the city since age ten, and just as pertinently by the stories of her friends who stayed behind.

Beginning within a classroom, Millie is handed a note by Jesse inviting her to join their weekend protests against the bill – and Millie senses an opportunity to take her sheltered friend out on the town for the first time. Downtown, they leap off the bus a stop early and dive into the bar of Danny, a bartender dishing out free shots like nobody’s business. But when Danny and Jesse meet, hedonism turns into praxis, and kicks all three into an unstoppable spiral of events leading to danger, precarity, and sensory overload.

The script very cleverly treads the line of understanding the marginalisation that people like Jesse and Danny experience alongside the social isolation Millie experiences – at school Jesse’s ‘Tiger Mum’ outcasts her as a negative influence, while her classmates laugh as she can’t decide which culture to draw her ‘bring your national food to school day’ from. Margins are thick, and complicated, and as events take their twists and turns each one of these characters comes to a reckoning with their place in a shifting, revolutionary space.

Martin plays all characters within this piece sensitively, and without ever taking away any level of authentic voice. This is such a credit. She embodies the characters only at moments where it is necessary to build a world around her, and proves herself to be a commanding storyteller. Much of the early sections of the piece are dedicated to the sensory environments that Millie experiences, and to draw us into the world Martin grew up in – mosquitos, bus drivers with their tops off and bellies out, busy streets, pork, pollution. This contrasts stunningly and starkly with the vivid descriptions of the environment surrounding the protests later on.

As we descend into Hong Kong’s nightlife undergrowth, the immersive theatrical of the design excels at its fullest – you feel the techno soundtrack pulse through your veins, the beating drums of the protest run through you, and the trippy club lighting (no doubt bolstered by the substances consumed) sending Millie spinning. This is a masterclass in delivering a frenetic, unrelenting political thriller with verve and style. Martin’s high-energy performance doesn’t drop for an instant – she and the staging work in resolute synchronicity to deliver pathos, candour, and unassailable charm.

Instinctually riotous and fascinatingly disarming – this is easily among the most refined storytelling experiences you’ll find at the Fringe this year.

Reommended Drink: Sneak into your parents’ drinks cabinet and grab a Tsingtao Beer on your way to Danny’s bar.

You can catch Youth in Flames every day until August 24th at Playground 1 at ZOO Playground from 19:00 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.