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[title]The bar is set, and The LKY Musical has plenty to do justice to, especially since it’s the first local stage production that charts the story of our first prime minister.
While its veracity remains to be analysed, the musical boasts a star-studded cast: Adrian Pang as Lee Kuan Yew, Sharon Au as Kwa Geok Choo, and Sebastian Tan as Koh Teong Koo, the rickshaw puller whom Lee credited as having saved his life during the Occupation. But the show also sees the professional debut of 25-year-old Benjamin Chow, who’ll take on the role of Lim Chin Siong, a left-wing politician detained as part of the vicious Operation Coldstore. Chow tells Gwen Pew more.
Chow is an actor, a musician and a spoken word artist, but he says the many hats he wears are a necessity: ‘Most artists would agree the only way to pay the bills is to be a multi-hyphenate. That said, I find music to be the soul of a lot of what I do. The idea of dynamics and rhythm and counterpoint extends to my work as an actor and certainly to my work in performance poetry.’
He learnt that Lim Chin Siong was: ‘A much more complex man than I’d been brought up to believe. I found out that after spending an accumulated nine years of his life detained without trial, he went off to London, got married and sold fruits for a living. I also found out that he seemed, for all his fire, a clear-headed man who understood politics and stood up against violent protest.’
He has little in common with Lim – on the surface, at least: ‘And from what little I know, we share a stubborn streak. I haven’t lived through a war, nor did I co-found a major political party, but I understand what it means to feel deep anger at injustice, and I know the immeasurable drive it can give you to right what seems wrong.’
His main goal is: ‘To watch and listen to everyone I’ll be working with. I hope to grow as an actor in this show, and I’m humbled and ecstatic to be going on this journey with a travelling band of such talented artists.’
And his other goal: ‘To hold that high note at the end of [the song], “Together We Stand”!’