APA, Lyric Theatre Thursday 12-August 22

Low in taste and high in spirits, Jim Chim is an original in the art of imitation. As if his immense mainstream appeal hasn’t raised enough eyebrows among his more traditional counterparts, the theatre star is often at his hilarious best when he’s impersonating, with joyful abandon, household figures from past and present of Hong Kong pop culture in his comedy theatre shows.

This fortnight, Chim is looking to round out his trilogy on the entertainment industry – which includes 2006’s L’empereur Au Chant and 2007’s My Life As TV Drama, satires on the local music and television industries, respectively – with King of the Jokers, his part-parody, part-tribute to our comedy film history. “These are all collective memories of Hongkongers, as the showbiz is a big influence on our culture,” says Chim, who is working this time without Edward Lam, his collaborator for the first two productions.

“Whether you are in the movie industry or not, it’s hard to shake the feeling that there are no longer any truly funny local comedies nowadays,” Chim thinks out loud. “Has a generation gap already developed between the movies and their viewers? In the past, whenever there’s a typhoon, we flocked to the cinemas. It’s not like that anymore; the sentiment has been lost.”

While summoning a boatload of popular comic movie characters – probably including his own extraordinary cameo in the 2001 hitman comedy, You Shoot, I Shoot – from the depth of our public consciousness, the comedian is actually also taking inspiration from his early roots in the Theatre of the Absurd. “After the audience have laughed with them, these movie roles have been frozen in time,” reflects Chim, who sets his current play against the setting of a film award ceremony, and whose initial conceptualization has much to do with Luigi Pirandello’s classic absurdist play, Six Characters in Search of an Author.

“After these characters have done their parts, they’re abandoned,” he continues. “They keep looking for the author who wrote them, for the actors who played them, and they pose the question: ‘why do we have to be created and make the audience laugh’? I’m really attracted by this idea. Many of these characters have earned laughter and applause at their peak, but it doesn’t last. When their mission is completed, they’re shelved and put into museums. I think it’s not just about comedies; it is also about life.”

So far, though, life seems to be treating Chim well. Having flourished in his two decades in the theatre scene, the veteran is looking to branch out into the movie business. “This is my way of preparation for what I’m going to do for the next 20 years,” he says of King of the Jokers, which may be considered something of a milestone in this big dreamer’s path to something bigger. “So this reflection on the Hong Kong cinema is very important to me. [I hope] to make it a good one.”

Edmund Lee

Performed in Cantonese. Tickets: 3128 8288; www.hkticketing.com