Catch this irreverent award-winning piece of tra$h the@tre - fresh off its Edinburgh Fringe 2023 run!

Money can't buy love, but £19.99/month can get you a mail-order bride directly from the wasteland of Asian stereotypes. Follow her journey as she strives to become the Unforgettable Girl, how is she forced to transform, destroy and rebuild herself in order to survive? An irreverent, no-holds-barred theatrical experience about the violence our culture inflicts on bodies of colour.

Winner of Best Show (OffFest 2021) and Best Performer in a Play (The Stage Debut Awards, 2022), Best Writing from Theatre Weekly (EdFringe 2023), and the Pleasance's Charlie Hartill Fund (2023).

Reviews

'A stand-out show' ★★★★★ Stage

'Leaves an indelible mark on its audience' ★★★★★ Theatre Weekly

'One of the most original, risk-taking shows on the Fringe' ★★★★★ The Reviews Hub

'Wonderful, exhilarating' ★★★★ Scotsman

'Magnificent, mesmerizes.' ★★★★ BingeFringe

'Beautiful' ★★★★ BroadwayBaby.com

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About the Artists

Elisabeth Gunawan (Writer/Performer) is a a critically-acclaimed and award-winning writer and performer, as founder of the artistic collective Saksi Bisou, her work seeks to decolonise, transgress and empower. Her work has been supported by partners including New Diorama (Intervention01), the Royal Court, Barbican Centre (Open Lab), Lighthouse Poole (Sanctuary Program), Shoreditch Town Hall and The Pleasance, among others. SAKSI BISOU is currently developing three new pieces: ’THREE SISTERS: SUBTLE, VAGUE & AMBIGUOUS’ is a dark comedy that explores stories as sites of struggle; ‘PRAYERS FOR A HUNGRY GHOST’ uses the myth of hungry ghosts to uncover the dehumanizing logic of model minority narratives; ‘PROMISED LAND’ explores the loneliness of the immigrant. She is currently conducting her practice-based PhD at Goldsmiths University researching the bouffonesque and the grotesque through the lens of decolonization and intersectional feminism—a research that was rooted in her Developing Your Creative Practice project ‘Myths, Stories and Worlds’ research (née ‘Mythical Storytelling’, 2021) and her residency at Grotowski Institute (2021-2022). She has worked as an actor, performer and deviser with Ad Infinitum, Flabbergast Theatre, and the David Glass Ensemble, and on multiple films with the artist Eelyn Lee.
Kyll Anthony Thomas Cole (Performer) is a 2020 graduate from the East 15 Acting School and an associate Artist with the David Glass Ensemble, Flabbergast Theatre and Created a Monster. He has performed multiple iterations of his original piece HOLD/FALLING. Originally a dance piece performed at TEDx Bedford, New Diorama SHINE BLACK, SHINE Takeover at Latitude 2021, it was subsequently developed into a theatre piece alongside Created a Monster, and performed at Tramshed and Bloomsbury Festival. He also performs as Malcolm in Flabbergast Theatre's 'The Tragedy of Macbeth', having performed it at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022, Ludlow Fringe 2021-2022 and most recently at Southwark Playhouse. Kyll's main aim is to continue his exploration into the structure of race through work with varied individuals and communities. He expands it beyond the study of the self, diving into collaborative creation of poignant and provocative art centered around the questioning of societal norms. As an artist, he believes in exploring various perspectives, giving voice and recognition to the voiceless, challenging the norms of the everyday and working to promote equity for all.
Simon Gleave (co-director) is a creative director of award-winning company Created a Monster with whom his directing work has won an Off West End Award for 'Unforgettable Girl' and for which Elisabeth Gunawan won a Stage Debut Award for her performance. His directing has also recently been nominated for an Off West End Award for son. theatre’s Let Go Home. Simon also performs with Flabbergast Theatre on their celebrated international touring production of 'Macbeth' (Wilton’s Music Hall, Nottingham Playhouse, Assembly Roxy, European Shakespeare Festival Network) and their new adaptation 'Midsummer Night’s Dream' (Winchester Theatre Royal, Ludlow Castle), and has performed and collaborated for many years with David Glass Ensemble ('Mortgage' and 'Bleak House'). Simon studied at the Ecole International de Theatre Jacques Lecoq and is obsessed with the practice of play as a tool of creation, learning and care.
Charlie Wood (Production Designer) is an artist, writer and performer making work across a number of mediums and styles. Charlie is a regular on the cabaret circuit, having performed at everything from Glastonbury to Torture Garden to the Puppet Theatre Barge to the Zabludowicz. Along with famed clown and cat lady Frankie Thompson, Charlie is the founder of Miss Ellaneous - a cabaret night for weirdos. They starred in Brooklyn Rep’s ‘In the Basement’, are a regular favourite of the RVT's much loved adult panto, runner-up of Not Another Drag Competition 2021 and winner of the seasonal all-stars special 2022. They are also founder of the orchestral punk band THWACK! and the author and producer of a number of solo shows about love and Hell and queerness and the Tories. They have worked as a designer and maker on all their own projects as well as with Created A Monster, Lea Anderson, Jeudi, Tate Collective, and the dance duo Tamar and Joe.
Richard Durning (Sound Designer) is a sound designer, performer and theatre maker whose work oscillates around exploring integrations of sound and body. Working with sound as a foundational element, he devises alongside theatre-makers to create deep synchronicity between movement, space, story and texture, often using live instrumentation and foley. Extending this research, he is currently studying physical theatre at École Jacques Lecoq in Paris. He has composed and designed site-responsive immersive soundscapes and interactive headphone shows; visual, physical and storytelling theatre; dance, and short films. Current projects include Conspiracy of Orphans (Created A Monster, Tramshed and Gothenburg Fringe) and Mosh (Rachael Ní Bhraonaín, Project Arts Centre for Dublin Fringe).
Matej Matejka (Additional Movement Direction) is a multi-award winning movement and theatre practitioner who specializes in opening up the creative potentials of the body, and this comes out in his teaching and directing. Most recently, he was movement director for Flabbergast Theatre's Macbeth (Assembly Roxy - Edinburgh Fringe) and co-director of Saksi Bisou's 'Prayers for a Hungry Ghost' (Barbican Centre) and 'Promised Land' (Bloomsbury Festival) UK. Born and raised in Czecho-Slovakia, curently living in Poland, he was an actor and movement co-trainer with Farm in the Cave studio in Prague from 2000-2005 and Teatr ZAR, Wroclaw, Poland from 2005-2018, where he performed in 'Dark Love Sonnets', 'SCLAVI: Song of an Emigrant', 'Anhelli: The Calling' and 'Caesarean Section: Essays on Suicide', winnning Herald Angel and Total Theatre awards in Edinburgh in 2006 and 2012. He is the founder and leader of Studio Matejka, a performance research studio and company under the auspices of the Grotowski Institute, in which he directed and created multiple theatre productions, short films and interactive performances among others 'Awkward Happiness or Everything I Don’t Remember About Meeting You', 'Charmolypi', site-specific projects including 'Angry Man: Variations in Defense of Anger' nominated for The Best OFF 2018/2019 in Poland. Matej directed seven short films, including 'Pearadise', which won the Best Foreign Film award at the Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival in 2013 and 'Conflict of Apathy' in NUDANCE Festival, Bratislava 2014.

Credits

Originally co-produced with Pleasance, VOILA! Festival and Created a Monster
Written and Performed by Elisabeth Gunawan
Directed by Simon Gleave and Briony O’Callaghan
Co-Performer(s) Kyll Anthony Thomas Cole, Lili Chin
Designed by Charlie Wood / Sound by Richard Durning

Collaborators: Megan Hartley, Susie Su, Tan Qian Yan, Ian Morgan, Peta Lily

Gallery

An asian woman is dressed in a white wedding dress, wearing pink sunglasses a tiara made of Barbie doll body parts. She is holding a British flag and sticking her tongue out at the camera.

An East Asian woman strikes a post at the camera. She is wearing a white wedding train and a tiara made of Barbie Doll body parts

An East Asian woman poses with one stockinged leg out in front of her. She is wearing a white wedding dress, pink sunglasses, a tiara made of Barbie Doll body parts, and holding a Union Jack flag.

An East Asian woman in a wedding dress kneels on the floor. Her makeup is smudged and a cigarette dangles from her lips.

Bathed in a red light, a woman poses seductively on a chair whilst coquettishly holding a paper fan. A man in the background is taking a video of her on a phone.

An East Asian woman wears a transparent face mask that has makeup and a smile on it. She regards the blonde-haired Barbie doll in her hand.

An East Asian woman in nude-colored clothing looks out in the distance. She wears a tiara made of Barbie Doll body parts, and an image of a lipsticked-mouth is projected onto her crotch area. Her shadow looms large on the wall behind. Beside her, there is a Barbie doll shrine.