Theatre Review (Singapore): All You Can Eat by Wild Rice’s Young & Wild, and the Rice Cooker Programme

Wild Rice’s Young and Wild had a graduation showcase titled All You Can Eat, that ran at the Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre from May 14th to 17th 2026.

Photo by Ruey Loon

Made up of 10-minute plays, the more than 2-hour show started off very strong with Wild Rice’s resident playwright Alfian Saat’s Appetiser which was insightful and cheeky at the same time. The full ensemble of actors took turns to perform Saat’s words with aplomb and a quick pace, which was a delight to watch.

Thereafter the 8 other plays were a mixed bag in terms of writing and acting. The new playwrights were from the Rice Cooker Programme (also by Wild Rice) and whilst some of the plays like Hot Pot (by Rachael Ng) and Dry Martini (by Timothy Yam) stood out, the other plays were pretty lackluster and didn’t captivate enough. These plots were not unique and hence were rather predictable story wise.

As for the acting, it was also a mixture of talent. Some actors were really good, such as Qilah Rose whose monologue in Dry Martini was layered and expressive, with the right amount of subtlety, and duo Chai Jean Yinn and Lee Mun Yee who brought the house down with laughter in Hot Pot. Chai played a professional woman who has to resort to dining alone on her birthday, and Lee played the overzealous Haidilao-type of Chinese-accented waitress that hilariously oversteps the boundary between customer service and nosy Aunty.

Hot Pot – Chai and Lee (Centre). Photo by Ruey Loon

However some of the acting was underwhelming and unaffecting.

In Miriam Cheong’s inconsistently toned and unnaturally cadenced Layer Cake, actors Choo Xin Hui and Megan Ann Pang sported semi-American accents that seemed weird given that the play is set in Singapore. Even stranger was their mispronunciation of certain words that made the American accent even more unconvincing and unnatural.

Actor Judah Kan had the same issue of trying to put on an American accent but was belied by his inaccurate pronunciation in Saat’s Appetiser. Kan performed much better in Alia Alkaff’s Mee Soto playing a mee soto obsessed Singaporean child – but this time, with the correct accent.

Joel Tan’s Last Course closed the performance with a powerful play about the relationship a human being has with food throughout their lives – from a baby being fed by a mother, to an elderly mother being fed by her child, and every meaningful moment of life in between, that is governed by food.

Overall, this production had a lot of appeal despite some shortcomings. After all, food is so closely intertwined with various aspects of life, just like the widely celebrated food writer M.F.K. Fisher famously said, “First, we eat. Then, we do everything else.”