Shay Mace
Gawa Leung is the writer and one of the performers of upcoming EdFringe dark comedy theatre piece Hater. Making its Edinburgh debut this August, the story is inspired by Gawa’s own experiences being defeated in a casting call to play a Hong Kong Sex Worker on the screen. Put together by production company Brava Guava, the piece looks to untangle themes of anger issues, CPTSD, stalking and representation all within the confines of a bonkers and unhinged storytelling style.
You can catch Hater at The Penny at Gilded Balloon Patter House on August 5th – 31st from 11:00 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Shay: Hi Gawa – you describe your show Hater as a ‘hate letter’ – tell us about what’s inspired the show and the situation that’s gotten you riled up enough to bring the story to the stage.
Gawa: The fact that immigrants are getting into the arts! It was bad enough when my fellow fresh-off-the-planes tried to prove their westernisation by going into ‘humanities’ or the ‘social sciences’ just to ‘critically reevaluate’ how things were done back home (clear signs of economic boom). Now they’ve gone full circle and started romanticising their own country in spoken word open mics to evoke some semblance of cultural self-respect! It’s gotten out of hand! Woe is me! I was supposed to be the only Chinese person in any room to stun the locals by speaking perfect English!
Nae bother. This show will be their demise.
If you want specifics, in 2023 I was sent an open casting call for the role of a Hong Kong sex worker in the remake of a French erotic drama film. The character was there to teach the French heroine how to be more in tune with her own pleasures. I thought she was in the bag. G*mma Chan was busy with The Creator and K*tie Leung (shoutout to the OG!) was away with The Wheel of Time– so colour me surprised when I found two dozen people tagged under one Instagram post alone! Where did these Asian ‘actors’ come from?!? So yeah, I didn’t get the role.
Jokes aside, this show is inspired by the fact that when faced with people who carry a real passion for social justice, my cowardice and my cynicism make me feel irredeemably inferior. And when I finally uncover evidence of their hypocrisy, I am disappointed by my relief.
Shay: What’s the creative process of putting the show together been like, and bringing that ‘hate letter’ to life?
Gawa: Super collaborative! It’s been a lot of fun brainstorming with our new cast (we have a fantastic third actor JJ Lam joining our cast, and a new assistant director Esther Ugiri!). Our director Megan Brewer has such a clear vision for the blocking, but still leaves plenty of wriggle room for us to try out and discard ideas. We have been playing with the idea of platform theatre, delineating the real and fiction, and physically fleshing out the characters.
Shay: What will be the first thing the audience sees, feels, and hears as they enter the space?
Gawa: None of this is set in stone yet – the first thing the audience sees might be a glowing LED mosquito net adorned with glowing mechanical keyboards that doubles as a Muay Thai boxing ring. They might feel an impending sense of doom, or a sense of great relief at how cool the venue is coming from the surprisingly mild August heat (please). They might hear us asking them to cast our play!
Shay: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Gawa: I hope ESEA audiences see the full potential for ESEA storytelling to be creative, bonkers, urgent, pacy, weird, unserious, form-defying, paradigm-shifting, commercially viable (please).
Shay: What journey has the show been on to find itself at EdFringe 2026?
Gawa: Did it once. Decided it was pure shite. Cried. Went to therapy. Redrafted. Did it again. Decided it was purer shite. Cried. Went to therapy. Swore to never do it again. Got a surprise email telling me we got into Lambeth Fringe and Voila festival. Redrafted. Cried doing it the third time. Surprisingly satisfied with the result but swore never to do it again again.
It started off as short excerpts performed at scratch nights across 2024 and 2025. We had amazing feedback from generous audiences which gave me unfounded confidence. Vomited the first full length draft, took it to Brighton Fringe on a whim. (Back then it was called Open Source Intelligence and Counterinsurgency for the Jobbing Hater, absolutely impossible to typeset on the poster.) From the second scratch night, we had a wonderful director Tess Adèle Glinert who was incredibly supportive and whose collaborative approach made the rehearsal room such a safe space to play.
Lorraine Yu was with us from that point, inspiring us all with her fantastic physicality, and we worked with a wonderful actor Amaany Ali who gave the show so much with his impeccable comic timing. After the first redraft, we performed it at The Space Theatre in London, this time with my good friend Lavan Jeyarupalingam, who imbued the production with profound insights. In hindsight, these should have been marketed as WIP shows but hey, we had positive reviews! It went through another redraft before Lambeth Fringe ’25 and Voila Festival ’25 where it was cut down to a two-hander and Lorraine multi-roled in 7 different characters going through about 318 costume changes in 60 minutes. Absolute Trooper.
Shay: With EdFringe now just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Gawa: Sussing out the competition! I’ve already started compiling a list of shows to see featuring East and Southeast Asian talent. I will be so supportive they won’t see me coming.
Shay: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Gawa: 24 flavors vegan protein latte infused with magnesium and zinc. ’24 flavors’ or ‘jaa sei mei’ is a bitter, bitter Cantonese herbal tea with 24 ingredients known for dispelling (or propelling) hot air from your body. There. I’ve hard launched my pre-seed business idea.
A reminder, you can catch Hater at The Penny at Gilded Balloon Patter House on August 5th – 31st from 11:00 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
