SUN IS SHINING

TIME OUT CRITICS' CHOICE

(twice in two years!)

SUN IS SHINING BY MATT WILKINSON tells a darkly comic story of a love affair between mixed-race city trader Dave Li and artist and recovering alcoholic, Lorna McRae. A two-hander set in London, Greece, Reykjavik and New York, Matt Wilkinson’s first play for Mu-Lan is a searing tale of love, betrayal and the quest for identity.

Winning the support of the Lottery, Sun is Shining opened at the newly refurbished Kings Head Theatre in Islington in February 2002. It starred Daniel York and Pauline Lynch and when remounted at BAC in 2003, starred Daniel York again and Pauline Turner..

Following the success of this production at the Kings Head, where the show was placed at number 2 on the Time Out Critics' Choice list - the highest spot any show by any British-East-Asian theatre company has ever achieved and the first time a British-East-Asian theatre company had made this list since our own production of Takeaway back in 1998 - this show was remounted at the BAC in April 2003. Again, it was placed in the Time Out Critics' Choice list, making it the most critically lauded production in British-East-Asian theatre history.

Mu-Lan are proud to post here the full unedited reviews of the show:

GUARDIAN " (Three Stars) He is a 'chink in a suit' and she is a 'jock on the wagon', but in what might be the unlieliest pairing since Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, this odd couple fall in love. Dave is a half-Chinese motormouth city trader, all flash suits and cars, endlessly mobiles and bottles of champagne. Lorna is a quiet, ex-alcoholic, Scottish artist who likes to look at the stars.
Can love bridge the gap? Not in Matt Wilkinson's urban love story, a small but spry tragicomedyof two people, two cultures and two outlooks. It is a small show, but quite delightful. Its jazzy recreation of fast London life played on Soutra Gilmour's shiny steel set captures the impulsive raciness (and emotional emptiness) of contemporary living. Dave does everything at 100 miles an hour, even squeezing a two-week holiday in Greece into just eight days, while Lorna drifts around his empty echoing penthouse flat trying to fill it up. With love? Memories? The family he has cut himself off from because his Chinese dad once embarrassed him at school?
Sun is Shining was developed for the excellent cross-cultural theatre company, Mu-Lan which over the past decade, has produced a quietly impressive body of work.Sometimes here, though, you feel as if Wilkinson is trying too hard to emphasize the Anglo-Chinese aspect of Dave's background and the impact of it on the central relationship. There is also a tendency to impose big metaphorical meanings on this little story of love found and lost: not every play has to be a King Lear.
In fact, the throwaway lightness of Sun is Shining is part of its charm, and anything it lacks in size is made up for by two winning performances from Daniel York and Pauline Turner as the mismatched lovers. This is an evening that is small, not quite perfectly formed and effortlessly enjoyable. Lyn Gardner"

TIME OUT "The King's Head may be much-loved as a venue, but its not exactly what you would call 'hip'. If this new production is a change of tack, then more power to it - I've never seen it so funky, so vital. Matt Wilkinson's play is slick, solid and blindingly up-to-date - down to its blond-wood and brushed steel set (by Soutra Gilmour) and techno soundtrack. Its a breakneck rush through the unlikely love affair between Dave, a mixed-race city trader and Lorna, a Scottish, ex-alcoholic artist. In each other's words, a 'chink in a suit' and a 'jock on the wagon'. Wilkinson's writing is sharp but fluid, swerving from monologue to dialogue and back as the relationship shifts from club to swish apartment to holiday in Corfu. Its driving force is the struggle between Dave's motormouth patter ("Three phones, five screens...boxster in the sidestreet; its not a fmaily car") and the awkward intimacy that Lorna brings. But this comedy - including some hilarious mobile phone riffs and a tour-de-force down the dogs - is just to prepare you for the painful thunk when the relationship hits the skids. The issue of race is low in the mix, but keenly felt in the way Dave's self-image is locked away behind his full-on persona. Wilkinson directs with assurance and Pauline Lynch and Daniel York are both splendid, giving utterly different performances that meld beautifully. Jonathan Gibbs"

WHAT'S ON "Matt Wilkinson's debut as a dramatist, the first fruit of the Mu-Lan company's new writing scheme, is part of a collaboration with the Royal Court designed to create mainstream theatre reflecting the lives of British-based Orientals, and giving challenging roles to Oriental actors. This dual remit is fully met with a tough, Mamet-style two-hander, brilliantly played by Daniel York and Pauline Lynch, in which an Anglo-Chinese city trader has a turbulent but doomed affair with a Glaswegian artist and reformed drunk - or as they style each other: 'a Jock on the wagon'; 'the Chink in a suit'. Lynch as Lorna provides the sunshine of the title, clear blue eyes in a radiant face framed by an auburn crop. And she glows with sunny joy when York's dark-eyed, jowly Dave first picks her out from the crowd, turning all his acquisitive attention on this shy waif from another world. A moment of London magic leads to a swift 'wham-bam' encounter under a starry sky, followed by kisses and lingering tenderness. And as this odd couple become an item, he adds her as a trophy to his collection of fast cars, racing dogs, restaurants, Paul Smith tailoring and penthouse luxury. But their physical contact gradually falls away, casting clouds across her sunshine. Unable to come to terms with his mixed racial origins - he admits to being embarrassed when his Chinese dad turned up at school - he interrupts their time together with slick business mateyness on his mobile, a fax machine that spoils their sojourn in the Greek islands, while his recourse to casual sex amidst the market gloom suddenly terminates the relationship. Told through conversational stand-offs and thoughts shared directly with the audience, the spare, economical dialogue hints at felt, unstated pain. Directing the piece, author Wilkinson sets it against a stark, elegant backdrop, focussing attention on an East West relationship with nowhere to go, and with several punctuation points before the last full stop. She grows, he declines. But the text offers York all the best lines in a performance of thrilling power, poise and subtlety, not to be missed. John Thaxter"

EVENING STANDARD "RACING CLASH OF CULTURES This is theatre for the adrenaline culture, a pumping, throbbing, finger-snapping portrait of a recovering alcoholic Glaswegian artist and her attempts to win the hyperactive heart of a City trader. The Mu-Lan theatre company was set up in 1988 to shatter Oriental stereotypes, and in its latest work it addresses its issues against the racing backdrop of 21st century life in the city. With an achingly modern stainless steel and pale wood set, the production proves as exciting as it is flawed. Dave looks Chinese, but talks with the garrulous charms of an East End wide-boy, while Lorna's supposedly been-round-the-block artist is sweet, petite and more inclined towards poetic observations. In real life, would these two ever have got together? However, this production proves a fascinating example of rhythym and pace providing its emotional backbone. It works because director and writer Matt Wilkinson has successfully caught the zeitgeist of today's caffeine-and-cocaine culture through the ruthless tempo, so that while the chemistry between the two actors suffers from wavering credibility, their appealing embodiment of young, modern values ensures that this does not become a fatal flaw. The issues of Dave's Chinese origins are carefully understated - the interest lies in the harsh new persona he has constructed to ensure his City of London is paved with gold. Here the culture clash is as much about art and the city as it is about the increasing elusive notions of national identity. Rachel Haliburton"

HIGHBURY & ISLINGTON EXPRESS "For a play about being slick, the slickness of Matt Wilkinson's production can only be deemed fitting. And like its protagonist Dave, Sun is Shining is more than fast talking and sharp one-liners. London city trader Dave meets ex-alcoholic artist Lorna in a bar. They chat up, hook up, split up. Nothing remarkable in that, except the razor-sharp acuteness and flair with which the minutiae of the relationship's flaws and the clash of its protagonists are traced. Dave is half-Chinese, Lorna is a Scot. Both have issues of identity and belonging, which become apparent as soon as the Chinese music is drowned out by pumping beats before the theatre's lights have even dimmed. Fortunately, this is about as unsubtle as it gets. Daniel York brilliantly makes Dave as sexy and appealing as he should be objectionable and, in moments of soliloquy, approaching sensitivity as he half lays himself bare. That he's a macho, selfish, workaholic liar is taken as a given and it becomes immediately possible to see why feisty but troubled Lorna falls for him. As the play progresses, Lorna becomes more subdued and her character loses some of its edge, although Pauline Lynch does well to resurrect it at the end. The script - bar (very) occasional lapses - is excellent and drenched with a refreshing, contemporaneity offset by Soutra Gilmour's chic post-modern set. 'Total quality', as Dave might say. Top notch. First rate. See it, like it, love it.

Toby Lichtig"

About Sun is Shining

Sun is Shining was developed through the Mu-Lan New Writing scheme with the Royal Court and was first performed at the 1st Mu-Lan Festival at the Albany Empire on 9th September 2000. It received full public rehearsed readings on 27th November 2000 at the Southwark Playhouse and 12th January 2001 at the Drill Hall

Project partners included The Albany Empire, The Kings Head Theatre and the Royal National Theatre's Education Department together with Lewisham's Art of Regeneration programme.

This production of Sun is Shining was presented, free of charge, together with an educational programme of workshops, to local schools and the community in Deptford, with financial assistance from the Baring Foundation, London Borough of Lewisham and The Art of Regeneration. Over 150 school-children participated in this pilot scheme, drawing the highest of praise from the teachers:

'If we had the highest of expectations, then the workshops would have sailed through with all guns blazing and banners flying'.

Addey & Stanhope School, November 2001.

About the author

Matt Wilkinson trained at RADA. As an actor, theatre includes Red Demon (Young Vic), The Birds (Gate), NT's Wind in the Willows (Old Vic); film includes About a Boy, Ali G Inda House, The Avengers; TV includes Shackleton, Harbour Lights, Mystery of Men.

For Mu-Lan: as actor, Take Away, Dining Alone, Frying Circus, The Missing Chink; Sweet 'n' Sour. As associate, development of new plays Lilting to The Past by Hong Khaou and Mental Arithmetic by Bruce Wang for Soho Writers Festival 2001.

Other work includes writer/director Taking the Light (Third Man Films), UK adaptation Hideki Noda's Red Demon (Young Vic), short play Stone (BAC). He has recently completed his second full-length play Red Sea Fish (Riverside Studios 2004).

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