Front Row

Tuyen Do has acted at the Royal Court and the National Theatre and now sh'e written a play. Not only is it her first drama, it’s the first by British-Vietnamese writer to have a full professional production in the UK. Summer Rolls is a family saga that centres on Mai, whose parents have escaped war-torn Vietnam, but carry psychological wounds. They are anxious not just for their children to succeed, but that their daughter in particular should not stray from Vietnamese culture and language. But Mai is young, inquisitive and growing up in multicultural Britain. She yearns for the freedom her parents fled to the UK for but which they won’t allow her. Tuyen Do talks to Kirsty Lang about dramatizing dual identity, and the importance of telling such stories.The first retrospective in Britain of the American artist Cindy Sherman opens at the National Portrait Gallery this week, spanning her 40 year career. Best known for her fictionalised photographic self-portraits, Sherman manipulates her own appearance and image