FROM a childhood working in a silk factory, to the murder of her father, to the escape to the UK that separated her from her children, Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok, is a new play by In-Sook Chappell. charting the extraordinary life of Lily Kwok.
It’s based on the family memoir Sweet Mandarin by Helen Tse. Helen Tse is a writer, restaurateur and lawyer: she graduated with a first from Cambridge to become a lawyer, then went to Hong Kong to learn more about her roots.
Inspired by her grandmother’s story, she and her twin sister Lisa opened the Sweet Mandarin in 2004 and have been awarded an MBE for Services to Food, launched an international range of sauces, written three cookbooks and the restaurant was voted Best Local Chinese restaurant on Gordon Ramsay’s the F Word.
The play moves from heartwarming highs to catastrophic lows, and also asks questions about what you give up to fit in, and what you leave behind to move forward.
*Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok, is a Lighthouse, Poole from Friday, April 27 to Saturday, April 28. The restaurant’s famous Mabel’s Chicken Pot will be cooked live onstage.
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