HOT POT Will Come to Playhouse East in June
The debut production from Auka Productions will run at Playhouse East, founded by Struan Davidson and Windson Liong.
Auka Productions will present Hot Pot, a new play set over a shared meal and examining friendship, gay identity and the small betrayals of adult life. Performances will run Tuesday 16th June – Sunday 21st June 2026 at Playhouse East, 258 Kingsland Road, London E8 4DG.
Auka Productions presents a tender new play Hot Pot, set over a shared meal and examining friendship, gay identity and the small betrayals of adult life. Following four university friends reuniting at a hot pot restaurant after the Covid pandemic, Hot Pot begins as easy laughter and the retelling of old misadventures. As they catch-up, the meeting slowly settles into a more searching conversation. Between shared plates of food and the simmering broth, layers of facade peel away to reveal how time has rerouted the friends in many ways. Hot Pot is a play that honours the complexity of friendship, identity and survival.
Drawing on the lived experiences of East Asian perspectives, the play explores gay identity with honesty and nuance against a cultural backdrop that can be hostile or indifferent. The conversations in the narrative about secrecy and the pragmatic demands of family and culture surface through the characters' histories and revelations. The ordinary act of sharing a meal becomes an act of reckoning, questioning whether belonging demands conformity or can be rebuilt through chosen ties, and whether leaving is always liberation or sometimes another form of loss. The play invites audiences into an intimate single evening that subtly reframes how its characters understand home, love and the cost of authenticity.
Hot Pot is the debut production from new theatre company Auka Productions, founded by Struan Davidson and Windson Liong. Fuelled by the power of live theatre and committed to showcasing new writing, Auka Productions marks its first production with Hot Pot, in which both founders also appear. The cast is completed by Michelle Yim and Shin-Fei Chen.
Hongwei Bao, writer, comments, Hot Pot is a play about friendship, relationship and love. It is about how some of these significant relationships have changed over time, and how others remain strong ties in our lives. It is also a play about dreams, ambitions, and the joys and pains of growing up; about how one can live an authentic life despite pressures from society and expectations from other people. It is a story that everyone can relate to.
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