Yeoh has directed several plays and has been involved with writing groups and mentorships such as Royal Court Writers, Soho Young Writers, BBC Radio, Moti Roti, Talawa and Yellow Ink. He sat on the board and then as chair of Talawa Theatre Company for eight years until 2012. Yeoh's first play,
Lemon Love, was performed by
Louie Bayliss and Salima Saxton at the
Finborough Theatre, London, in 2001.
Lemon Love is a revenge love story involving a mystical older couple guiding and berating a younger couple in their stormy relationship. It was directed by
Elizabeth Freestone. His second full-length piece,
Lost in Peru, was first performed at the
Camden People's Theatre, London, in 2003. It was
Arts Council of England funded. The play dealt with torture and interwove personal tragedies with those on a larger scale particularly '
the disappeared' in
Latin America.
The Guardian suggested that "while Yeoh and director
Sarah Levinsky should get praise for trying to push the boundaries of form and style, both probably need reminding that there is no point in innovations and performance styles whose tricksiness threaten to bore the audience to death". A reading of his third play, called
Yellow Men at the time (2004), was performed at the Soho Theatre, produced by
Yellow Earth Theatre. It also received Arts Council funding.
Yellow Men was renamed
Yellow Gentlemen and performed at the Oval House Theatre in February - March, 2006.
Time Out wrote of it that there was a "vertiginous sense of possibility and regret present in Yeoh's intelligent script".
Patent Breaking Life Saving, directed by
Jessica Dromgoole, was broadcast by
BBC World Service in December 2006. The play was about an African president who hits his head and starts giving out medicines for free.
The Places in Between, a dramatisation of the book by
Rory Stewart, directed by
Kirsty Williams, was broadcast on
BBC Radio 4 on 15 February 2007. The story is about Rory Stewart's walk across
Afghanistan just after the fall of the
Taliban.
Nakamitsu (2007) won the
Gate Theatre Translation Award. It is a version of a Japanese
Noh play.
The Guardian said of
Nakamitsu: "Small but exquisitely formed, Benjamin Yeoh's new version of a 14th-century Japanese Noh play is fusion theatre, borrowing from east as well as west. It is both strange and familiar, accessible and remote, restrained and yet somehow full-blown".
The Times said of it "The play is just 50 minutes long, yet its richness gives it stature". Yeoh wrote the recorded dialogue for Coney's interactive re-imagining of
Kensington Palace's State apartments, called "House of Cards" (2012-14). Yeoh co-wrote, with David Finnigan, and performed
Thinking Bigly, a performance-lecture at Theatre Deli, London, and on-line versions. Laura Kressly called it "an engaging, informative and interactive presentation that gives a wide-angle view on what we can do to save the planet". From 2021-25 he performed another performance-lecture at
Camden People's Theatre and Theatre Deli, in which he asked the audience to help plan his funeral. His story "The Invention of Fireworks" was read on
BBC Radio 3 in 2004 by
David Yip. Yeoh also works as a
financial analyst. Yeoh sat on the UK financial regulatory body
Financial Reporting Council Investor Advisory group (from 2018) and the
Royal London Asset Management Sustainable Investing advisory committee. As of 2021, Yeoh was an associate fellow of
Chatham House, Sustainability Accelerator. == References ==