Date of Interview: 29 August 2025
Interviewer: Robin Khor
Interviewee: Jamie Zubairi
ROBIN KHOR
So do you want to start by telling us, how did your journey with New Earth Theatre or Yellow Earth begin?
JAMIE ZUBAIRI
At the time, it must have been 1998, I think, or possibly ‘97. I met David Tse, I was in a panto at Stratford East and I did two years of panto. So I can’t remember which panto it was, but he invited me to audition for Song of the Railroad, which was going to be up in Leicester at what is now The Curve or Leicester Haymarket Theatre. And I’d never heard of Yellow Earth, and I didn’t know that East Asian theatre existed in the UK. So I was really astounded and curious and kind of excited by what was there.
I’d just come out of drama school in ‘97, so this must have been ‘98. I was very new to the industry, very new to the business, and just fascinated by the fact that they were sort of like unheard voices out there in the UK doing and UK based, not a touring company, not an international company that was visiting, but an actual East Asian company based here.
I didn’t get the gig, but it was my first introduction and I was really excited. And then I think I auditioned for Blue Remembered Hills, which was a bit later, and that was a workshop audition, I think, it was a two day workshop with David Glass Ensemble, and that was again exciting. And that was when I first met other East Asian actors in the industry. You know, we exist, and I met people who had similarly just come out of drama school. Lee Ling was one of them and really excited that there were other people and not just me. So I was really excited. I didn’t get the gig again, but I went to see the play and that’s when I was introduced to Kwong and Kumiko and David properly.
And then they started doing the Typhoon festivals, which were, you know, the play reading festivals at Soho Theatre I think it was at the time. And did various play readings that year. I think maybe two or three at the time. They were like, I would see the same faces. And after the first kind of audition, we all went to the pub and met Daniel York, and East Asian actors who had been in the industry longer than I have. So these people were around. And that’s what I enjoyed, like listening to them and all that kind of stuff.
And then it wasn’t till later, and then I think I did maybe a number of play reading festivals throughout the years until I got cast as the Emperor in The Nightingale, which David Bay directed, and we took on tour to Northern Ireland and ended up at the Polka Theatre. We also did The Albany. As part of the tour we did The Albany, but then we ended up in the Polka for the Christmas season after that. So it was quite a long gig and that was so much fun. That was so much fun. And again, working regularly, meeting, working with Haruka, who’s become a firm friend as well. So it’s very much like, you know, that’s when the family began, as it were.
Well, actually, it began before that because from the play readings, I think by the end of the first season of play readings, we all were like, somebody said we should do dim sum. So we then started going to dim sum beyond the play reading season, just to kind of catch up and see who’s working and see who’s not working and what’s going on, and all that kind of, basically becoming a community and a network. So that was kind of core for me to be like, a longevity of an artist I think you’re going to have your bad months, stroke years, but if you’ve got your community around you supporting you, going, yeah, it’s crap for everybody, or this is coming up or, you know, get your agent to put sub you for this, all that kind of stuff. It’s always very encouraging and it’s always very like you feel part of something. And when you make the decision to leave, it’s like, it’s tricky. And some people have left the industry and blessings to them because, you know, they make their choice and they kind of go, no, it’s hard and it is hard despite how much your parents tell you, like, oh, it’s a hard industry. When you realise it yourself. You go, oh God, it’s hard, you know what I mean?
But then everybody’s feeling the same. At some point, everybody will go through the dip and go, oh no, it’s really hard. Despite the work you do. And you think I’ve done one play this year, or I’ve done one day’s telly or whatever, and at the time it was like I’ve done one play this year. It’s great to have those people come and see you and then you see their shows. And that’s what New Earth had the space to, to create this community, this kind of loose community of East Asian actors, you know, BESEA actors. That’s what was vital at the time.
And it’s become a lot bigger now. We’re a lot more connected and there’s so many BESEA actors around, which is great. But we still need that community. We still need that community of support and network and all that kind of stuff. And it just goes to show how much work they’ve put in to make that thing. Almost not to say by accident, but as a kind of a side benefit of becoming one of the only BESEA based theatres that champion East Asian work and all that kind of stuff.
So I’ve been really grateful for what they do and for everybody involved in it and on the periphery and who’ve railed against them and all that kind of stuff, because, you know, you get to ask questions and you get to question, how is it for minority actors in the UK? You know, what is it like and what are these gatekeepers that don’t allow us in? And so far I can only think of one casting director that is East Asian. So I’m encouraged to find that it’s there. The groundwork is there. And anything that happens after this is because of that groundwork that all the East Asian companies did, you know, back in the mid nineties. It’s been a long journey. I’ve been nearly thirty years myself in the industry. Twenty eight years. Wow. I didn’t think I’d last this long. I thought, okay, ten years and that’s it. But then at ten years, my direction changed from just being an actor who’s waiting for the phone to ring and all that kind of stuff, to wanting to create my own work, because there was nothing for Malaysian actors out there and mixed race Malaysian actors. So I just thought, well, let’s create work. That’s British based, but British, East, Southeast Asian, you know, and work that other Southeast Asians will understand and connect with.
So I’m really thankful for that support that they’ve, you know, they’ve given because they all came to see the show. It was great. So yeah, there’s a lot of the journey that highlighted my career.
ROBIN KHOR
Did New Earth Theatre sort of support the making of your shows, or was it mainly them turning up to your shows and then having a chat?
JAMIE ZUBAIRI
Just turning up, having a chat and, you know, really kind of being encouraging of people that do make their own work. Because making your own work is hard, especially when it’s solo work. But with the community around you, you can kind of go, oh, anybody got time to help me do a reading or help me test something out and all that kind of stuff. And that’s what the community does, and that’s what has been a great resource.
We did some before Covid of just reading plays, and these are kind of Western European theatre, which we won’t get the chance to be seen for. I remember Jonathan Man did an East Asian version of Beautiful Thing, which had a completely East Southeast Asian caste. It was still set in London, but the look of it was different. The feel of it was different and it didn’t feel like our ethnicity was an issue. It was another layer, but it was never an issue. And that was kind of a breakthrough when you see, like all the other plays going. We can’t put an East Asian face in the thing because it brings up a whole lot of other tropes or issues or questions and, you know, they don’t want to muddy the questions.
Well, surely it makes the play more interesting with those questions. And I guess a lot of people don’t see that. But, you know, sometimes with colorblind casting, those questions get raised. They get looked at and sometimes they’re answered, sometimes they’re not. But at least the questions are being asked. And visibility is part of that. When it’s the drama that matters, really, it’s the story that matters. And yes, with the inclusion of others, it makes that story more rich, I feel.
ROBIN KHOR
So how do you think that New Earth Theatre or Yellow Earth Theatre has kind of shaped your career?
JAMIE ZUBAIRI
Well, they were the first company that accepted me as a writer with the Yellow Ink program that they ran. And that’s when I started exercising my writing voice. So that was key. And even with the productions doing Why the Lion Danced and watching kids just engage with an East Asian family going through the same problems that everybody goes through. It’s the fact that it was set in the back rooms of a takeaway. You know, you still had the granny, you still had the dad, you still had a missing mom, which a lot of people still can relate to and still can identify with.
To me, that kind of said, we can do anything. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what race we are, what ethnicity we are. As long as the story is identifiable, we can do anything. And that was important in shaping what I do, because it just meant that with the specificity of the story, there was a universality of identification that, you know, all these five year old kids could identify with and not pigeonhole us as, oh, this is an East Asian thing.
But also like, oh, so this is what happens behind the scenes at a takeaway, all that kind of stuff. It was magical in terms of, it broke down those barriers. It asked those questions and sometimes answered them. So the shaping of my career through that was just like, make what you do identifiable. Hold that mirror to society, even if it’s your own face. People will identify it because it’s authentic, because it’s honest, because it’s open.
ROBIN KHOR
Do you have the fondest memory with the company?
JAMIE ZUBAIRI
We were on tour in Northern Ireland and we were all with (The) Nightingale, and we were all for the month in cold rain which is in the middle of the cold, bleak, kind of beautiful in this house, quite a big house. And everybody’s room had their own little kitchenette, and had their own toilet. All this kind of stuff. But I remember Johnny Tan, who was a Hong Kong actor, came to me one evening knocking on my door, going, Jamie, Jamie, I don’t have a rice cooker. How can I cook rice? And I’m like, it’s easy, it’s okay. I showed him the one pot method and used my dad’s technique of, like, one finger on the rice level and one finger on the water level, you know, on a high boil. And then as soon as the water disappears, cover it and then turn it off, let the steam create its own thing and then, you know, like half an hour later when, oh, my God, I’m going to get rid of my rice cooker. Just so sweet. And so, like, I’m a Malaysian teaching him how to cook rice, like a Hong Kong Chinese actor. Like, so like, I don’t know, that to me was like, oh, that’s a proud moment, you know what I mean?
ROBIN KHOR
Has there been any challenges working with Yellow Earth, and how did you guys navigate around it?
JAMIE ZUBAIRI
As an actor, I remember the whole Orphan of Zhao thing that went on with the RSC and the subsequent like, was it called “Breaking the Door” or “Kicking the Door” conference that Daniel York helped organise or was key in organising. It was one of those things where we were never being seen, we were never being heard. We were never being cast or not cast in a meaningful, significant way. People were playing dogs or servants or prostitutes or, you know, all that kind of stuff. But it’s like, oh, it’s, you know, it’s for the National, it’s for the RSC it’s for. So, you know, we just bow down and take it.
It feels like casting directors can see that there’s talent there. But because of the stories being told, we don’t get to tell them. And it feels like at a molecular level in the industry, there’s always been a hierarchy of white, black, South Asian, East Asian, you know, and then Southeast Asian of visibility and of inclusivity. And that was one of the key things which without the community of Yellow Earth, New Earth rallying together and really making our voices known and heard, I don’t think that would have been possible.
And from that, there was a bunch of us who were all mixed race who kind of went, okay, yeah, we’re the minority of the minority. So we joined together and within a year we’d got a showcase of duologues, and we had a list of all the casting directors that we could invite and all the agents we could invite. And some of us got good agents, some of us got seen by casting directors. And so it became, without the kind of kicking the door open thing, without the power that that gave us, I don’t think we would have had the courage to have done that showcase. It certainly made us feel like, oh, we do have power. We do have strength. We do have a voice. We just have to say it. We just have to turn up and make those voices heard.
This was 2013 when we did that showcase. So it was pretty much key to what my career is. I’m still with the same agent that I got from that showcase. They’re very much supportive. They know that I make my own work. They know that I do other things. And it’s one of those things where I remember that it got the ball rolling for me, like in a big way. That really kicked my career into existence. And this is after, you know, nearly fifteen years of being in the business, realising that I’m only going to be ethnic casting.
At my drama school before I left, I was advised to change my name because with my eye color, skin color, hair color, casting directors will assume that I speak with an accent. I said, yes, it’s London. I do, you know, code switch to a Malaysian accent when there’s other Malaysians in the room, but at the same time it’s like that’s their problem and their blindness to ethnicity. There’s an assumption that we’re foreign. We have a different way of working that may not gel in the rehearsal room.
ROBIN KHOR
How would you describe New Earth’s specialty in their storytelling? What do you think their approach is when it comes to storytelling?
JAMIE ZUBAIRI
The stuff that I’ve seen, the stuff that I’ve been in, I always think anything theatre goes. Whether it’s any form of puppetry, any form of movement, it’s not limited to East and Southeast Asian theatre forms. Not at all. But there may be a sense of that. There may be a feeling of that within the pieces. And in order to get the story across in an interesting way that introduced a lot of people to non-Western theatre forms.
I think what they do, there’s always a sense of mystery and or mysticism actually. Whether it’s in the piece or in the writing or in the movement, there’s always a sense of like it doesn’t rely on Western theatre. There’s always a sense of, in a way, spirituality that isn’t really part of the piece. The work allows a kind of deeper feeling that the world is surrounding us, supporting us.
Even in the last piece, the one about inheritance, there was a sense of like, greed and spirituality and morals and all of those things tied within this toxic family. It seemed like there was an allowance for the mystery of the non-human existing within us. You know, people never consider the spirituality of things, but I see a Yellow Earth piece and go, oh, there’s something there. There’s something other, that’s driving the piece. That’s what I like.
ROBIN KHOR
So before we finish, what does it mean to you to be part of New Earth’s 30 year legacy?
JAMIE ZUBAIRI
Oh, God. It’s a complete honour that I’ve been asked. Having been there at the start of the Typhoons, just being part of the community. And not to say a granddad, but certainly like an older voice that not to say has shaped it, but certainly has been one of the faces in Yellow Earth’s kind of plays.
Yeah, it’s a complete honour to be part of it. But hopefully there’s a place for, you know, hopefully my voice will be oh, so people have been doing this for a long time, right? And we’re still here and we’re still thriving and we’re still struggling. We have bad years. We have good years, and it’s just normal. Welcome to the community, you know.
ROBIN KHOR
And do you have any final words or a message for people who are discovering New Earth for the first time?
JAMIE ZUBAIRI
Be prepared to be surprised. Be prepared to be stretched. Be prepared to also, as a BESEA actor, you’re new in the industry, look to yourself for what you can bring. You know, because people might have gone to top drama schools and never been asked to like, look at their own East Asian culture. But here, it’s all about us. So look to our own experience.