Dreaming on the High Seas: A Review of Asian Pirate Musical

Commissioned for the speculative literature and media publication Stranger Horizons (Issue 28 September 2026), edited by Dan Hartland

"The audience steps onboard, and they are greeted with splayed ship masts fluttering in a haze, the translucence of the sail invoking the webbed wings of a dragon mid-flight: The first harbinger of what’s to come. Pirates from a shared continent, but centuries apart, next come crashing onboard, fighting first for their own and then gradually each other’s survival on a lost vessel.  

This is the primary, intriguing premise of Asian Pirate Musical. It is a project years in the making, with a sold-out premiere at the now-defunct VAULTS Festival in 2020, and now having made its full splash on the scene with a week-long July run in North London. The production is an attempt to spotlight relatively unknown histories with much-needed nuance, subvert the white gaze inherent in conventional musical theatre, and project modern anxieties into a dystopian future that centres East and Southeast Asian voices (both figuratively and literally).  

The production is a speculation on and a decolonial queering of what could await us in two decades, and two centuries, from now. Rising sea levels have swallowed entire land masses, the sky flushes red, and the global population has scattered across the oceans and deep space. Neopronouns are normalised, Si Kancil and the hantu are physically invoked, and future generations still swear “sial ah!” in frustration. Notably, most scenographic choices are informed by motifs from the Nusantara. For example, Riang, one of the space revolutionaries from the future, sports a cropped jacket and headgear in matching Thai batik, on top of the unmistakable kris being a weapon of choice with fight scenes inspired by stances and sequences in pencak silat. The polyphonic score is led by the Pan-Asian reverberations of the gamelan, guzheng, and taiko, a trio rarely—if ever—featured in instrumentation within musical theatre. Many references in Malay are not translated into English in the captions, and two of the characters’ movement languages incorporate hand gestures from Beijing opera that make full sense within their chronology.

A main theme in the show is the question of, and consequences of asking, “What if?” There are recurring dreams of rewriting the future (the historical characters of Zheng He and Sek Yeong bemoaning their eventual demise), grieving the past (Nazar, the twenty-first-century lone survivor, being haunted by the deaths of past shipmates), and self-determination (Riang and Keliling, both romantic and crew partners of their technologically-advanced spaceship in the twenty-third century, having to renegotiate their individual identities and aspirations). 

Vocal and character-led performances are excellent across the board, with detailed mythpunk choices in costuming, spoken dialogue, and the libretto (which were all delightful to my Southeast Asian sensibilities). I appreciated the reframing of the diasporic experience with elements of science fiction and cultural futurism—all of the characters are transplants, and refugees of an array of times and geographies, an experience that I can comfortably assume is deeply relatable to many in the audience. Zhui Ning Chang’s direction teases out lighter moments in the text, and establishes an endearing sense of ensemble camaraderie within the cast. Scamp Niemz’s set design models a deconstructed ship, and the versatility of the materials used alongside well-constructed props by Mikayla Teodoro work in tandem with vibrant lighting design from John Chan 元樟 and spectral projection design from Jeffrey Choy. The combined efforts of Jade Leamcharaskul and Vincci Chung facilitated an original sonic world that harmonised the familiar and the unfamiliar; we hear the crashing of the waves syncopated with electronic interjections.

The narrative, set in 2049 on the Strait of Melaka, interweaves five character arcs with individual moments in the spotlight, not including appearances of a sixth where the ensemble don conical hats that are commonly seen on agricultural workers across Asia, which seem to be a broader representation of the masses as a chorus. The songs hint at complex pasts and harrowing life experiences; however the multiplicity of perspectives diluted core narrative and character arcs, leading to a lack of sufficient dimension within a run time of less than two hours. I wonder about Nazar’s experience of Indonesia being swallowed up by the ocean (which feels increasingly urgent), and what the exact nature of Nazar’s all-consuming grief and distrustful hyperindependence was. Sek Yeong plans a mutiny at the beginning and ropes Zheng He in, but that subplot dissolves without further development.  

All of these stories are brimming with possibilities, and the importance of educating about the past and connecting with the zeitgeist of climate and political anxiety is evident—however, the speculative notions in the production’s premise were what felt the most exciting to me. I am left wanting to hear more about the production’s interpretation of how existence could look in 2049 and 2249; more about the piracy and cultural rituals depicted, and what a decolonial future could look like if humankind has been forcibly displaced and subject to the anarchy innate in the unknown. The production ends on a moral note—the ensemble is in the midst of combat with a hantu rocking their vessel when Nazar empathises with the creature, and convinces the group to respond to it with kindness (and a song), which in turn strengthens their bond with each other. Reconnecting with the more-than-human world as equals is a useful reminder (and one ingrained in many Indigenous philosophies), however it is a significant sudden addition with no other appearances of that ecodramaturgical context in the narrative. Ultimately, the breadth of exploration in the piece left less room for depth and clarity.

It is nevertheless imperative to consider the project’s positionality within the wider theatre landscape in modern Britain. My desire to learn more about its world is testament to its potential. Asian Pirate Musical is fundamentally an invitation to honour ancestral knowledge, redefine cultural legacy, and decentralise contemporaneous hierarchies of visibility in live media. Who gets to have their perspective heard, and who gets to speak (and who understands)? Are there ways of sustaining authenticity and representation that responds to a diverse audience without othering our own? The production features the joys and sorrows of gaining/losing chosen family, living queer truth, and overcoming arbitrary differences in times of crisis. Speculative storytelling—regardless of the form it takes—foregrounds the value of subjective epistemology, and enables the individual to indulge in visions of future worlds that are inclusive of their unique intersections. These experiences are creative sites of resistance, what Gehrmann calls “a specific anti-colonial space” that allows for “border crossings … and community formation across time”—an intangible force that inspires solidarity, and challenges pervasive stereotypes. 

The Tongan and Fijian scholar Epeli Hau’ofa proposes the metaphor of “a sea of islands”—describing a nomadic world where the blood of the covenant can be thicker than the water of the womb. It describes lateral relationships, where “peoples and cultures moved and mingled, unhindered by boundaries of the kind erected much later by imperial powers.” Finding solace in kinship, and engaging with our collective imagination, is perhaps the antidote to the marginalisation many Global Majority communities are battling in Western-facing systems benefiting from our exclusion. With its all-Asian cast and creative team, Asian Pirate Musical stands in direct spite of the status quo, and remains an unapologetic celebration of pride and presence. 

For more information, and full team credits, visit the production's website here.