Poster Design by Rebecca Pitt
About the Play
ONE AT A TIME is a dark new comedy-drama that follows three lonely characters in their journeys to save each other and themselves.
Carol, a member of the Beachy Head Community Saviours, has her work cut out when it comes to talking people down from the brink.
When familiar faces emerge from her past, she finds herself overwhelmed and under-staffed. Who should she go to first? Is it possible to find happiness? And is that 90s boyband member wearing his own merchandise?
The play deals with issues of mental health in relation to society's ideas of masculinity and British East Asian identity and encourages kindness and support. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Through talking, we find that we don’t have to be alone.
The Set Design
Set Design by Charlotte Henery
Daniël Henry Kaes (Writer)
is an award-winning BESEA writer for stage and screen of mixed heritage. His first play was shortlisted for the prestigious Cambridge Footlights Harry Porter Prize for Best Comic Play, as judged by the brilliant Alex Horne (the Horne Section), who said of the piece: "without wanting to sound too vain, it was a bit like something I might have done". His work has been staged in London and around the UK, including at the Brighton Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe festivals, to sold-out houses and four- and five-star reviews, most recently in 2016, when the show was included in the Top 5 Comedy Shows at the Fringe (Derek Awards). His writing has also been commissioned by BBC3, NewsRevue, and Stories That Have Wings, as well as showcased at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and Other Palace by Mercury Musicals and Musical Theatre Network. His most recent short film won 14 international awards.
“Welcome to Beachy Head, East Sussex, the third most popular suicide spot in the world. Dreadful, isn't it? Only third… Sorry. It was a joke; an ice-breaker"
We join three lonely people who meet at a notorious suicide spot in their journeys to save each other and themselves.
"Incredibly touching and humorous” (Three Weeks)
“Witty, relevant and relatable... A brilliant play and another success for Punchline Theatre.” (Broadway Baby)
From multi award-winning company Punchline Theatre (2 Complicated, Jack & I: The Ripper Musical).
Mingyu Lin (Director)
Ming is a director for stage and film, she's a Creative Associate with Headlong Theatre and a reader for Traverse Theatre and the Bruntwood Prize. She’s a current recipient of the Living Pictures bursary and is a founding member of BESEA advocacy group BEATS. She has directed and written a number of short films which have won finalist awards for Sundance Shorts, Sci-Fi London, Enter the Pitch and ITN's Nativity Factor and been screened in festivals worldwide. Her most recent film Sandwich won Best Film at Filming East Festival at the BFI and was selected for the TIC film festival 2019 and her comedy pilot Back in the Day by Kerry Gooderson was a finalist at the 2019 Pilot Light Festival.
Stage directing credits include: Babel (ArtsEd), Overheard (CAN, Nottingham Lakeside Arts/York Theatre Royal/Wun's), Does My Bomb Look Big in This (Tamasha, Soho Theatre), Lòng Mẹ (Van Thanh, Vaults Fest 2020), No Bond So Strong (Sampad, mac Birmingham), Silently Hoping (Ellandar, Applecart/Vaults Fest 2019), Grotto (Next Up Talent, National Theatre Studios), Hear Me Now (Tamasha, Rich Mix), Rice Paper Tales (Trikhon, The Albany/ mac Birmingham) and A Dream from a Bombshell (Trikhon, The Albany).
For more information on our previous works...
Poster Design by Rebecca Pitt
Shuang Teng (Producer)
Shuang Teng is an actor, producer and writer. Her acting credits include CAN’s “Overheard”; feature film “The Receptionist” (selected for the 2017 Edinburgh International, Raindance, Salento and Asian American Film Festivals), for which she also worked as a producer, Shuang has recently started performing standup comedy. As a producer, she is currently producing The “Garden of Words” Stage Production at Park200 (adapted from the film by Makoto Shinkai). She has produced various short films including “The Sexual Joneses”; (Kerry International and Hamilton Film Festivals), “Sandwich”; (Best Short Film, Filming East Festival) and “Green” (shortlisted film, made for the London Sci-Fi 48- Hour Film Challenge). Her previous stage productions include ”O Deptford”, a promenade site-specific theatre show in collaboration with The Albany and Yellow Earth Theatre. She has also produced and performed various stage productions for Punchline Theatre including their 2017 productions at Barons Court Theatre, Brighton Fringe and their 2016 Edinburgh Fringe productions.
Charlotte Henery (Set Designer)
Charlotte is a London-based set, costume and production designer, she is a graduate of the design course at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Australia. Recent design credits include: The Seagull (Dramaten Theatre); Silk Moth (Arcola Theatre); What Fatima Did... (Derby Theatre); The Shy Manifesto (UK Studio Tour); and Curtains (Arts Educational)
A note from the writer
One at a Time is a show that is very close to my heart. It is set on Beachy Head, and the setting becomes almost a character itself, in that it is a liminal space where emotions are heightened and reverberate. Audiences can expect a mix of the comic, the dark, and the poignant - which may seem like a dichotomy at face value, but in fact, represents the spiralling nature of life and the various methods we use to cope with it. Life can be funny and it can be sad; the good moments and the bad moments balance out.
The show explores themes of mental health and masculinity from a BESEA (British East and South East Asian) perspective. Numerous studies have shown the increase of suicides across all ages amongst males (but particularly young males under 45), with suicide the biggest cause of male death in the UK.
The conclusion from Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is that there is a “cultural barrier”, in which we expect men to live up to some pre-conceived notion of masculinity, and that seeking help is a sign of weakness.
At a time when anti-Asian racial harassment and hate crimes are at a record high (an increase of 300%), we also need sensitive discussions of mental health in ethnic minority communities, as well as positive and nuanced representation of BESEAs in leading roles.
And yet, although the show must naturally deal with mental health, the show finds its meaning in the appreciation of life and friendships. Talking about your mental health openly with one another is the most helpful thing you can do, because you know that you are not alone in your suffering and that it does get better. The bad moments don’t last forever.
Daniël Henry Kaes
