From Manchester With Love

Hi guys, I've just spent 36 hours in Manchester, mostly in MediaCity UK - I'm not kidding you, that name actually exists. I did get the train to Manchester Piccadilly so I did spend at least 3 hours or so in town. Work used to take me up to Manchester (and that whole area in North-West England) a lot more back in 2006-2008 but I've not been there in 4 years! So yes, it was nice to revisit a city I do know well but has changed a bit in 4 years. MediaCity UK is a brand new development, spearheaded by BBC's decision to move many of their operations from London to Manchester - so fingers crossed, I will see a lot more of MediaCity UK in the future I hope.

I went up to Manchester because I was doing a radio play for BBC Radio 4 - for those of you not familiar with BBC radio, basically radio 4 is the serious station that doesn't play music. It has extended news bulletins, documentary style reports, long interviews with famous people and they do quite a lot of radio dramas. I was roped in to do a few roles on a radio drama called 'China Girl'. It was a about the challenges faced by an English couple who adopted a baby from China. There was another Singaporean actor Wendy Kweh on set and between Wendy and I, we played all the Chinese parts (quite a few)! Wendy has been in the UK even longer than me, so I was coaching her in Mandarin and trying to get her accent to sound more PRC and less like Singdarin. There were also a few other white actors with lines in Mandarin as well and I was the Mandarin language coach.

It was quite a lot to do in 36 hours but extremely fun as well - finally, after my really bad experience with the BBC when it came to Mandarin years ago, I not only got the main Mandarin speaking part but the director and writer put their complete trust in me to be the Mandarin coach. I was the one checking everyone's pronunciation and I was like, YES! Limpeh gets to call the shots today and I get to decide if the others have done their lines well enough in Mandarin or if I have to pull them aside to give them more, "listen to the way I say it and repeat after me."

I've brought my baby panda Bui with me - I adopted him whilst I was in Vietnam this time last year and I thought I'd celebrate his first birthday with a trip to Manchester. Besides, it's a drama piece about adopting a Chinese baby and I adopted a Vietnamese panda ... well close enough. I thought I'd share some photos with you before I do a proper piece later in the week. After all, I have so much work waiting for me since I was in a recording studio on Monday rather than at work - but I realize I am so freaking lucky to be able to continue dabbling in media whilst holding down a proper job in finance. Too many pictures to caption - the first ones were taken in central Manchester and the later ones are in MediaCity during the recordings. I hope you like them!