Anna Chen is a writer, poet, broadcaster and blogger who writes and presents programmes for BBC Radio 4 as a freelance, and writes, produces and presents her show, Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge, at Resonance 104.4FM. Her blog, Madam Miaow Says, was shortlisted for the 2010 Orwell Prize.
She was the first British Chinese comic to take a show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Suzy Wrong — Human Cannon (1994) (in which she memorably gunned down audiences with a pump-action sex doll firing ping-pong balls out of its business end), and was the first to appear on British television, in Stewart Lee and Richard Herring’s show,Fist of Fun (BBC2) in 1995. She is the author of I, Imelda 1998; Anna May Wong Must Die!;Taikonaut; and The Steampunk Opium Wars (2012). She also does stand-up comedy.
Her programmes for BBC Radio 4 include: A Celestial Star in Piccadilly: Anna May Wong introducing British listeners to the Hollywood legend and most famous Chinese woman in the world in the 1920s and 30s; Chopsticks At Dawn exploring the familiar five-note musical trope cartooning Chinese music; Madam Mao’s Golden Oldies looking at Jiang Qing’s five model operas during the Chinese Cultural Revolution; Found In Translation about Chinese comedy; Yoko Ono — A Life in Flux about the respected artist rather than the rock chick; St Ives and Me in which Anna shared her love of the Cornish artists’ colony; and the groundbreaking ten-part series, Chinese in Britain.
She wrote and narrated the Radio 4 play, Red Guard — Yellow Submarine.
Her collection of poetry, Reaching for my Gnu, is available as an eBook and paperback by Aaaargh! Press. She has read and performed at the Oxford Poetry Society, Farrago Poetry, Apples and Snakes, the St Ives Arts Festival, the Stoke Newington Literary Festival, the National Maritime Museum.
She is a regular at the St Ives Arts Festival, giving poetry readings, hosting Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge at the Arts Club and, in 2012, brought The Steampunk Opium Wars to the festival.
“Just imagine, the whole place being upset by one little Chinese girl in the scullery.”(Piccadilly, 1929)
“Charming, witty and sophisticated.” SUNDAY TIMES