Date of Interview: 17 September 2025
Interviewer: Robin Khor
Interviewee: Matthew Bailey
ROBIN KHOR
How did your journey with Yellow Theatre or New Earth Theatre begin?
MATTHEW BAILEY
That started in September 2012, so this is going back to 13 years ago, and it was basically the very first job that I had when I moved to London. So I was an actor, puppeteer, visual artist, and I was working in Los Angeles in my early 20s, and then I moved back to where I was from, Hong Kong, and I worked out there for a few years, and I kind of felt a bit disillusioned with the type of work that was happening out there.
And I was like, okay, I’ve honed in on my skills. I know who I am as an artist. I’m now in my mid-twenties. I want to get challenged a bit more, so I thought I’d take advantage of my British citizenship. I never lived in the UK before, but I’d always visited there as a kid because my dad is English, so I did that.
I flew over to London, didn’t know where to start, signed up to Spotlight and Equity, and then within about two weeks it was just perfect timing, really. Within two weeks, I get an email from Kumiko Mendl, who is the artistic director at the time, and she was a bit surprised. She’d never heard of me. She’d never seen me before.
So like who? Who are you? New Asian. I’m doing a show. Please come audition. I was like, okay, great. Amazing. Yes. I’ve just moved here from Hong Kong, so, yes, new Asian. We auditioned a couple of roles and this was for Dim Sum Nights, the 2012 national tour. It’s like, wow, this is great.
And I got it. And I rehearsed for about a month or so. And then we started the tour starting in London, and then we went up north, we went to Newcastle, we went to Birmingham, we went to Oxford, Manchester, performing in all these Chinese restaurants, these short little plays. So yeah, thanks to them, it really kind of kickstarted my new chapter as an artist in the UK. So yeah, that’s that’s how it all began.
ROBIN KHOR
What was your impression of the company when you first joined or encountered it?
MATTHEW BAILEY
Very welcoming. They felt like they had established some sort of community, and because I was new to the country, I didn’t have a community to really kind of jump into. And I had no idea that my ethnicity was, sure, I thought about it a bit growing up as an artist, but because I was predominantly honing my skills and talents where I was from in Hong Kong, I understood that world. And Los Angeles is very diverse anyway, so I kind of felt like I could play anything, do anything over there. And then when I came to London, it was very much like, you’re this ethnic group, you belong to this group.
Oddly, I found it quite segregating for me personally I just felt very much thrown into, which is not a bad thing, but New Earth made me aware of the ethnic group that I belong to, and because I belong to this ethnic group, there were certain stories that needed to be told, and I was a good tool to tell these stories.
At the time, I was a bit resistant at first, but through New Earth, through their welcoming sense of community for me, I got to tell some really, really great stories. Stories that I’d never even heard about before. My own personal history. So yeah, very grateful.
ROBIN KHOR
I was wondering about your experience, you know, coming in from an outsider, and then you felt like this is the first time, would you consider this the first time you ever felt like there is a need to use your ethnicity or your ethnic story to be an actor? Was this kind of like your very first experience?
MATTHEW BAILEY
Pretty much, yeah, I’d say so. When I was working in Los Angeles. I mean, the type of stuff that I was doing in LA was very avant garde.
I wasn’t doing straight theatre. I was working primarily as a puppeteer as well. So I didn’t really get exposed to maybe the Hollywood sense of you being this ethnic group, so you need to play this type of character or put on an accent or whatnot.
And then when I moved back to Hong Kong, because I’m a Hong Kongese anyway, even though I’m mixed race and I did face some challenges with being not fully Chinese working in Hong Kong, and I did Chinese plays as well.
We went on tour to Taiwan, which was great, and I did feel a bit separated from the rest of the cast, who were fully Chinese. But coming to the UK was the first time where I felt like, because you are this ethnicity, you should be telling these stories that are related to not even just being Chinese, but even I’ve I’ve been able to play Korean roles and Japanese roles, mainland Chinese roles, roles that I have absolutely no association with ethnically either.
But because I look a certain way, I’m able to play these types of characters.
ROBIN KHOR
And how did it make you feel about this situation? And if New Earth theater was a good navigation for you to sort of like working out this journey at ease.
MATTHEW BAILEY
New Earth allowed me to raise my concerns. They would cast me in a play or a workshop or a reading, and it’d be a character that I was like, I’m not that ethnic group, or I don’t have any real association with what it means to be British East Asian, because I remember when I first moved to the UK, there was this really huge kind of backlash that was happening with, several East Asian theatre companies and the big powers that be in the theatre world standing up to racism and all that kind of stuff really kind of hit all the news outlets. I think it was the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013, so I kind of got thrown in there and I felt a bit awkward at the time.
It’s like, I’m not sure if I’m a voice that needs to be heard because I am from another country. But they made me feel that it was okay to be this voice. You’re telling a story, and if you’re the best vessel to tell that story, then do it right.
ROBIN KHOR
Can you remember when? Or if there’s a moment that suddenly you feel, oh, New Earth feels like a family to you?
MATTHEW BAILEY
I can’t really remember a specific moment, but I think it was around the time it was 2014. It was around the time I was working on The Last Days of Limehouse with them. That’s when I really felt, I guess you could say, comfortable in playing these East Asian roles, which I had kind of resisted early on. I was really accepting.
So, okay, this is what I’m, I’m good at this despite or in spite of my ethnicity. And I got to play a Eurasian East Londoner who was running a Chinese takeaway in Chinatown at the time, in the 1950s, I believe. And it was around the time when Limehouse was getting shut down and they were building the new Chinatown in central London.
So a very interesting historical political play. I was working with new rising young East Asian artists and veterans at the same time. Yeah, I think that was a moment when I really felt, I feel like I’m part of a family now. Yeah.
ROBIN KHOR
Do you have a specific or do you have a funny or interesting story about that project?
MATTHEW BAILEY
I do remember because we were performing in Limehouse, Sir Ian McKellen owns a pub in that area, and a friend of ours, he’s a friend of Ian Mckellen’s, and he’s like, oh, I’ll bring him along to see the show. And he did. The show itself was promenade theatre. The audience were standing up and they’d walk from space to space to see all the different scenes unfold and without warning, oh, there’s Ian McKellen.
Okay, just keep acting. Keep doing your thing. Ian McKellen is here watching you perform. Don’t overdo it. And then bless him, he’s such a lovely guy. When the show ended, everyone crowded around him like, the audience laughed. But Ian McKellen stayed behind to have a little chat with the actors, and I was like, no, I’m not going to crowd him.
Everyone’s like, there is about I can’t remember how many were in the cast. It might have been about 12 or 15 of us in total, and they’re all surrounding him and asking him questions and everything. As much as I wanted to do that, I was like, nope, I’m going to go and, set up for tomorrow’s show, put my props away and everything.
And then I’d finished doing that and he was still having a chat, and I was like, oh, well, I don’t want to miss this opportunity to say hello at least. So I’m done with all my props and my head on over, and as soon as I get over to the crowd, Ian McKellen stands up and he’s like, right, anybody have a cigarette?
And at the time I smoked, I was like, yes, I do. Here you go, Sir Ian. And so, yeah, got to have a nice 15 minutes, one on one time with him outside the theatre, sharing a cigarette, talking about not really about theater at all, but just like what it was like living in Limehouse, really. Yeah. Lovely guy.
ROBIN KHOR
So being with New Earth Theatre have you faced any, you mentioned a little bit, just, do you want to elaborate a little bit about the challenges as an actor coming from another country to UK to work?
MATTHEW BAILEY
I guess there’s challenges with it doesn’t matter what ethnicity you are, what age group you are, what gender you are, there’s always going to be a challenge.
As an East Asian actor, I guess the challenge for me is really like, what I kind of touched on before is accepting the fact that I am an East Asian actor. For years that resisted. It’s like hold on a second, I’m half Asian here. Only half of me is really part of this culture that you keep throwing me into.
There’s another whole side of me that is international, you know, a third culture kid, American, British. I’ve got all these other stories that I can be a part of as well. But the industry won’t see that, you know, they don’t have time to break down. Like what you could be. All they have time for is what you are visually immediately.
And so that’s a challenge that I’ve had to face for my whole working career. And I guess the challenge is just accepting that and how I can navigate that and how I can bring that to my advantage.
ROBIN KHOR
Have you observed any shift in the invisibility of East and Southeast Asian sort of representation in the UK since your arrival and today?
MATTHEW BAILEY
I have, and in some ways it’s a good thing. Some ways it can be better. We’re taking steps. These things take time, but I think we need to remember that we’re living in a country that is predominantly Caucasian. Most of the people that live in this country are white. So when we fight for visibility and representation, there’s only so much that the industry can give you.
There are stories of East Asian families and experiences in this country, but your audience member, your paying audience member, how many of them are really going to care? Maybe a fair amount, but they’re probably not going to want to see East Asian stories thrown at them 5/6 times a week, for example. You know, so there’s that challenge of having the right balance of representation and also the right sort of stories, but then also getting rid of the idea of representation as well. Whereas like, oh, this guy is playing the lead, he’s a British spy, and he’s off to arrest some criminals deep in the jungle of the Congo.
And he’s British. But it just so happens that he’s East Asian and it’s never touched upon at all what his ethnicity is. Not once. I mean, we just had this show on Netflix called Hostage, and it’s about the Prime Minister’s husband getting captured in French Guyana. And he’s black. Did he ever talk about his ethnicity? Not once, not at all.
So hopefully there’ll be roles like that in the future. And they are starting to show up here and there. But I guess we needed to get over that hurdle of like, okay, we need to represent Asians, chuck them in a takeaway or give them an accent. Now it’s like, oh, he’s British, he’s raised in England, he’s got a British accent, but he’s Asian. Okay, that doesn’t matter. Doesn’t mean anything. We don’t need to talk about what that means politically. I think first we need to get past this ticking a box sort of thing.
We hit that era a few years ago of, alright, let’s please everybody and tick this box. Tick that box now. Everybody’s happy. No, maybe that’s the first step, but let’s get past that first step. And I think we’re hopefully starting to get past that first step of doing the bare minimum.
ROBIN KHOR
And how do you think New Earth Theatre has contributed to this ecosystem?
MATTHEW BAILEY
They’ve created an exposure of talent. I think they’ve shown the industry that there is East Asian talent out there. So whether or not, let’s say the bigger corporations, whether it’s a streaming service or national theater, if they want to cast actors that are of an East Asian descent, New Earth Theatre has helped nurture rising talent and give them that platform to play and to learn and to grow.
I hear from a lot of directors and casting directors and producers. I have a lot of contacts in the industry that are quite high level, and they’re always talking about, there’s no talent out there. I want not for diversity’s sake, but I would like to get an actor that is not white, but there’s not enough good talent.
And I think that’s changing. And in part thanks to New Earth.
ROBIN KHOR
Want to tell us a little bit. How do you feel that now you are part of the journey of this 30 year legacy? How do you feel about that?
MATTHEW BAILEY
Oh, I feel very honored. It’s an honor to have been asked to come back every now and then to audition for their projects.
You know, I got to tour the country several times, actually, because of them. And I’ve got to play some phenomenal, like, some of the best roles I’ve ever got to play was because of New Earth Theatre. So yeah, very honored.
ROBIN KHOR
Do you have any words for people encountering New Earth Theatre for the first time?
MATTHEW BAILEY
Enjoy the ride. Don’t take yourself too seriously and just enjoy yourself.