EDINBURGH 2026: Review: LEGENDARY, Friesian At Underbelly, Bristo Square
Chinese mythology retold through a queer lens
“I’ve been thinking about my childhood” is how the Singaporean performer Cheeyang Ng begins Legendary, a show preoccupied with the idea of childhood, and particularly with queer Asian childhood. This overarching theme involves both the messages we learn as a child, and what we pass on to our future children (as well as how we make the decision to have a child in the first place).
Ng, who uses they/them pronouns, is a musical theatre songwriter – and former Mandopop teen idol – but this is less a musical than a communal experience. Taking inspiration from the Chinese myths they learned as a child from their beloved aunt, Ng leads us through their childhood in Singapore and emigration to the US through a series of participatory call-and-response songs. The music is an interesting blend of Western musical theatre and Chinese folk music, and the harmonies produced by the audience are unexpectedly complex.
The incorporation of mythology into the broad narrative beats of Ng’s life can feel contrived – a jazz-infused song about Zoom sex has more to do with laughing at pandemic-era absurdity than it does with the constellation myth to which Ng tries to connect it. But at its best, Legendary draws us towards the notion that our life stories are part of something bigger, started by our ancestors, culminating in the idea that gods and goddesses, with their infinite guises, are inherently queer and trans.
What Ng is doing here is constructing their own personal mythology, even if they are fully willing to send up that grandiose notion with a satirical raised eyebrow (there’s more room for humour here than one might expect, and Ng has an arch sense of comic timing). The death of Ng’s aunt proves a destabilising moment in their hero’s journey, and one that leads them to a more mature sense of identity.
But it’s also not just about Ng – before we enter the auditorium, every audience member is invited to write a message either to their child, real or potential, or to their inner child. In a visually appealing set piece, our messages are dissolved in a watery solution, returning to their ancient origins. There’s also a segment where Ng invites an audience member on stage to become the protagonist of their own life-affirming audience-led song, though this part lacks structure and largely repeats themes already expressed in Ng’s personal narrative.
Legendary emerges as perhaps one of the shows this Fringe with most universal appeal. Those with and without children, those of any ethnic identity or cultural tradition, with any relationship to queerness, can find something to connect to in Ng’s vision of myths as exactly what we, and those who come after us, make of them.
Legendary plays at Friesian at Underbelly, Bristo Square until 31 August
Photo credit: Kevin O'Sullivan
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