This musical is so bad it's good - the story of Eddie Woo, son of a Chinese takeaway owner from Stratford. Uncomfortable in his skin, serial shagger Eddie dreams of being Tom Jones. Life hits a crisis when he's captured by The Gang of Three, multi-racial activists pushing the yellow cause to resounding martial music: Yellow our entrails, Yellow our toenails... Yellow the piss I stream at our foes. The libretto is execrable. An early song sung by Eddie's black girlfriend begins: Black is lazy and white's too fast, need a yellow man to make it last.
Takeaway is to the noodle what Goodness Gracious Me was to aubergines, but not as sophisticated. The first thirty minutes are terrible - lewd, racist, tuneless and without any warmth. Eddie is miscast and has the charm of a cold chop suey. It's when the rest of the cast find their stride that the show takes off. The dialogue moves from crass to cockily confident and there is a glorious youthful energy on stage as the parallel stories start to interweave.
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| Eddie Woo: wanton won tons |
This show has a bit of everything and a lot of nothing: a mirror held to immigrant life. It's highly entertaining. My favourite storyline was the friendship between Eddie's father (Ozzie Yue) and the retired Hong Kong actress Widow Chu (the wonderful Pik-Sen Lim) who sings of her showbiz highlights: When I sing in French, Though I am Chinese, All you think is passion and romance and cheese...
In Conclusion: A lot of the stereotyping bubbles eventually burst in this potential cult classic. Park your PC anxieties at the door, suspend disbelief and wait. When the laughs come, they're good. Often you're laughing for the wrong reasons, which makes it even funnier.
References
Robert Lee, writer of Takeaway in The Guardian
Michael Coveney in The Independent
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