Simon Wu – Playwright

Simon Wu is an exciting new voice on the London stage – in 2007 he received an award from the Peggy Ramsey Foundation to support his writing. Born in Hong Kong, where he is already an established playwright, Simon has been living and writing in London for the past seven years. His play, Wolf in the House, was short-listed for the Gate Theatre’s Translation Award, and also received a rehearsed public reading organized by Yellow Ink Scheme at the Soho Theatre and an extract of it was performed at the East Showcase there.  A work in progress of the play was again performed last year at the Tara Arts Centre under the China Now Festival. His play, The Pilgrimage of the Heart, was performed in May last year at the West Wing, Slough, and then for two and half weeks at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden. His one-man play, Just the Two of Us, was performed in April last year at the Inn on the Green, Notting Hill and was accepted as part of the Typhoon 6 organized by the Yellow Earth Theatre in 2009.

Simon was commissioned to co-write, Bare Branches, a one-hour China themed radio play for BBC World Service, broadcast in January 2008. His other co-written BBC World Service play, Demolition Man, as part of “A View from Here” was broadcast in February 2009. In 2008, he was invited to be part of “Urban Scrawl”, organized by Theatre 503 and Theatre Voice which invited 52 playwrights to write a short piece inspired by one of the stops on the Piccadilly Line - he wrote, Diwali and Curry, based on Alperton tube station which has been available online since March 2009. His co-written radio play, Looking for Stones, was chosen by RTHK Radio 4 (Radio Television Hong Kong) to represent Hong Kong in the Worldplay International Radio Drama Festival, broadcast in 1999, by RTHK and also the BBC World Service, CBA (Canadian Broadcasting Company) and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company). 

He was also involved in writing film scripts with his short film, Merry-Go-Round, which was shown on the opening night of the Wood Green Film Festival on 19 April and was nominated for the best local short film award in the Festival.  This film was also shown in a number of venues including the National Film Institute.