Betty Bong on new contemporary Chinese musical The Aquatic Melody
- Cultural Dose
- Aug 18
- 5 min read
The Aquatic Melody is a contemporary Chinese musical coming to Edinburgh Festival Fringe for three days only. We spoke to producer Betty Bong about the show and the accompanying scavenger hunt, which takes place on the Royal Mile.
Tell us what The Aquatic Melody is about?
At its heart, it’s about love — and the danger and desire bound up in that. The story uses the metaphor of consuming or being consumed, but it’s really about two very different people, two different worldviews, colliding. Even though the piece sits in the realm of magical realism, or what you might call romantasy — terms that don’t really exist as genres in Chinese — the core is universal: the yearning to be seen, to be heard, and to be loved despite everything that separates you.
The story has a magical realism edge — a mermaid, fate, and dark romance. What drew you to those themes?
The mermaid arose very naturally out of the aquatic imagery — the metaphors were there from the very beginning. We actually started with our original musical The Ghost Catfish and the Coriolis Force, and The Aquatic Melody grew as a way of reshaping and reimagining those ideas. There are also deeply Chinese elements at play: the beauty of transformation and myth. In some ways, it echoes the story of the White Snake evolving into a woman — love that crosses boundaries, even species, carrying both tenderness and danger.
The show itself blends Hong Kong pop, Japanese city-pop and Latin rhythms. How did that eclectic musical mix come together?
From the start, it was important to us that the music feel familiar to Chinese audiences. In China, most of the musicals people encounter are imported — either from the West or from Korea — and home-grown musical theatre, with its own sounds and visual language, is still developing. This is why many people continue to conflate musicals with opera: the form is still in the process of carving out a distinct identity in the Chinese cultural imagination.
To bridge that gap, we turned to nostalgic Hong Kong pop as our foundation. The sounds of the 1980s and 1990s shaped a generation and laid the groundwork for all of C-pop that followed. Hong Kong pop carries warmth, melancholy, and emotional resonance — qualities that felt essential to our story. From there, the expansion happened organically. Hong Kong pop already absorbed influences of Japanese city-pop and Latin grooves, so when our musical producer began to build the arrangements, those textures naturally blossomed.
At the same time, our producer felt it was crucial to make the score contemporary. While the DNA of the 1980s remains, the arrangements have been updated so the music resonates with today’s audiences rather than sounding like pure nostalgia. That balance — between memory and modernity — became part of our creative discussions, and it gave the score both immediacy and depth.
The Aquatic Melody isn’t just on stage — you’re also bringing it to the streets with a scavenger hunt. Where did the idea come from?
It felt only natural, being at the Edinburgh Fringe, to create something that embraced the spirit of the festival itself. The Tarot Quest grew directly out of the world of the musical, where there are hunters of mermaids and mermaids who have evolved from different sea creatures. We asked ourselves: what if audiences could literally step into that world on the Royal Mile, before even entering the theatre?
Each performer in the Quest embodies more than just a character — they represent the past, the present, and the future, just like a classic three-card tarot reading. But just as in the show, the encounters are not neutral: they reflect the same question the lovers face — in this exchange, who is predator and who is prey? That tension between pursuit and vulnerability runs through both the narrative and the game, so every interaction is a small mirror of the larger story.
It’s a way of extending the themes of fate, transformation, and power into the streets of Edinburgh. And it’s also just plain fun: an accessible, surprising game that invites passers-by to discover the show through play, while brushing up against the same unease and enchantment that drives the characters on stage.
Can you explain how the scavenger hunt works for someone who stumbles across it on the Royal Mile?
The quest is designed to be easy and approachable. If you just want a taste, you can play a quick game with a performer and receive a tarot card — it’s that straightforward. But if you choose to play through the whole quest, you’ll meet each performer, collect different cards, and eventually tell your own story, almost like adding your own character into the lore of the show’s world. The Tarot Quest is in English, so anyone can join in. And during the stage show itself there will also be English elements — interactive sections and spoken passages — but the songs remain in Chinese. I used to do a lot of LARP, so that probably influenced the design — it’s theatre, but it’s also play, and it works on whatever level you want to engage.
What do you hope audiences will take away from joining in the scavenger hunt — beyond the prizes?
At the simplest level, we hope people have fun — and of course, we’d love for them to come see the show. But it’s also about interaction. Because our piece is in Chinese, there’s naturally a language barrier, and The Tarot Quest is a way to reach audiences who might not otherwise step into that world. It gives us a chance to connect across cultures and invite people in through play, imagery, and imagination.
Finally, what’s next for the show and the company in the UK and abroad?
The Aquatic Melody is very much an experiment — it reimagines our original musical The Ghost Catfish and the Coriolis Force in a new form, and Edinburgh is the perfect place to test it. We’re excited to gather feedback here, revise, and develop a version that can travel to other cities and festivals. At the same time, we’re continuing to build a slate of original work. Our large-scale production Flying Apsaras is still touring, and we hope to bring it to international stages soon. I’m also writing two new pieces: one inspired by history and architecture, and another smaller show exploring gender relations, rising feminism, and the questions those tensions raise in contemporary China.
The Aquatic Melody is at Theatre 1 at theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall 21 – 23 Aug 2025, 21.40 (22.20). The scavenger hunt runs from 4pm – 7pm each day before the show, starting at the Fringe Shop on the Royal Mile.
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