Little Pieces of Heart

I went to see Dim Sum Dollies: The History of Singapore on Friday night. It was fun! Enjoyable! Definitely worth braving the traffic and human jams getting into Esplanade on a Friday night.

This was the first Dim Sum Dollies production that I have seen. Somehow, whilst it always looked pretty amusing and entertaining, never really felt the urge to go. But I thought it would be interesting to watch their take on the history of Singapore.

The show started promisingly. Sang Nila Utama (played by Hossan Leong, the "chopsticks" which go with the dim sum), nagged into activity by his mother into founding an island city, takes off in his boat with his girlfriend and finds the island of Temasek. Not impressed, he is about to take off when the estate agent comes and does a fast sell on him. He spots an animal, and fortunately for us his girlfriend doesn't like baboons. The next skits take us through the early history of Singapore - the prevalence of pirates in the area, the arrival of the British, the early sarong party girls, vice in old Singapore (gambling, women, and opium dens), Hossan Leong again as an Indian dhobi man with his cow. I truly enjoyed the touching tribute to the samsui women.

Somehow, I didn't like the second half very much. There were some funny moments such as the fan club for wonderful - LEE. But I really didn't appreciate the unnecessary scene of Irish nuns caning the wayward convent schoolgirl (although Hossan Leong was absolutely adorable as the schoolgirl in question) called Maria (although I am sure no one really remembers, I think this would have been around the time of the Maria Hertogh riots!). The ending scene was charming. Hossan Leong, as Miss Singapore kicked out of the Miss Malaysia pageant was hilarious.

The Dim Sum Dollies cleverly blend current issues (eg Ministerial pay hikes, en bloc fever etc) in the skit. Problem is, that sort of dates the play and in a few years, some of the items may not be current. So the play would always need updating. Fine when the Dollies are doing their regular reviews, but for history of Singapore, bit more difficult. But they sing well, look good and the whole show hangs together pretty well.

Favourite dollie - has to be Selena Tan. She really hams up the characters she plays, eg Sang Nila's mother with gusto, pirate captain. She milks her plump figure for laughs (eg, what dim sum does she make you think of? - well she thinks she's bigger than that!). But my favourite actor in the play is Hossan Leong, who steals the show every scene he is in.