Chinese-British actor David Yip tells Laura Davis about his emotional journey he undertook in writing his new play

IT’S hard work being a sort of unofficial spokesperson for your community, particularly if your community isn’t inclined to do much talking.

Yet it’s a role Liverpool actor David Yip has not shied away from, augmenting his 37-year acting career with the production of six documentaries and now a play about the experiences of the British Chinese.

Gold Mountain, which premieres at the Unity Theatre next week, is roughly based on his father’s stories about growing up in pre-Communist China.

Yip originally recorded them as research for a book he later decided he wasn’t comfortable writing while his father was still alive.

He hopes the show, created with French Canadian multimedia theatre company Les Deux Mondes, will make people think ‘I understand a bit more about those old guys walking around Chinatown”.

One of his frustrations as an actor, he adds, has been the lack of stories originating in the Chinese community.

“We don’t have the writers,” says the 59-year-old.

“I compare us very closely with the Indian community in this country and they’ve got fantastic writers, directors but we don’t seem. . .” he breaks off. “It’s a very slow process.”

This is not because nobody is prepared to listen, Yip continues, but because Chinese people in this country aren’t keen to push themselves forwards. Despite great business and academic success, Britain has never had a Chinese MP, he points out.

“I think in 2010 you can’t keep saying ‘they’re not given a voice’,” he continues.

“I think historically one of the nicest things said about the Chinese community – and yet one of things that really hurts the most – was ‘they’re so quiet, they’re so polite, they’re self-policing, they never say boo to a goose basically’ and that was true.