I sat down with writer and director Alan Ho to find out more about Have I Returned? coming to the Golden Goose Theatre this October.

Can you tell me a little about your show and what audiences can expect?

Have I Returned? follows a blind man who regains his sight after an eye transplant, only to find that the world he can finally see is far stranger and harder to adapt to than he had imagined. The gap between the world he envisioned and the reality he encounters gradually begins to shatter his understanding of everything around him. Audiences can expect a dark, emotionally intense and expressionistic journey exploring sight, truth and human relationships.

What drew you to this specific story?

I’ve always been interested in the difference between physical blindness and being able to see without truly seeing. Sometimes our eyes work perfectly well, yet we still fail to understand the people closest to us.

I wanted to ask whether having sight really means we can see the world clearly or understand it. Being able to see and being able to see clearly are two very different things. Sometimes, perhaps, not seeing allows us to understand things more clearly, because we are less likely to be deceived by what our eyes show us.

What has been the biggest challenge in bringing this production to life?

The biggest challenge has been finding the balance between realism and expressionism, as well as creating fluid transitions between the actors as individual characters and as an ensemble.

The world of the play is deliberately distorted and made unfamiliar because I wanted to create the world as the protagonist “sees” it, rather than the world as we normally understand it. In many ways, some of these ideas might actually be easier to realise on film. But that is also something I have always wanted to explore: taking certain cinematic techniques and ways of storytelling and finding ways to translate them into live theatre.

Imagine being perfectly happy in the world you have always known, only for someone to suddenly tell you that none of it is real, and that you need to put on a pair of glasses to see what everything truly looks like. Then you put them on, and the people around you look like monsters, the delicious food you loved becomes disgusting, and the beautiful buildings become ruins.

That feeling is difficult for an audience to immediately relate to, because the strange world he discovers after regaining his sight is actually the reality that we already know. So I need the audience to enter his distorted perception while still believing in the emotional reality of the characters and their relationships. Finding that balance has been difficult, but it has also been one of the most interesting parts of creating the production.

How does the design of your show (set, sound, or lighting) impact the presentation of your story?

Design is extremely important to this production because the audience experiences much of the world through the protagonist’s perception. Different colours carry different meanings throughout the play, while changes in lighting reflect shifts in his state of mind. Sound, too, does not always come from the external world; sometimes it feels more like a voice coming from within him.

For me, lighting and sound are not simply there to create atmosphere; they are part of the storytelling itself. They allow the audience to enter the protagonist’s perception — to see what he sees, hear what he hears, and experience how his understanding of the world gradually changes after he regains his sight.

If you could sum up the show in one word or phrase, what would it be and why?

“To see is not to understand.”

Because Have I Returned? is ultimately about the difference between seeing something and truly understanding it. Sometimes, the things right in front of us are the things we are most likely to overlook. I also hope the play reminds us to pay more attention to the beauty in our everyday lives — to truly look, feel, and experience the world around us. At the same time, we should have the courage to face the truth, without relying too heavily on the “truth” presented by our own eyes, because what we see is not always the whole picture.

Have I Returned? runs at the Golden Goose Theatre, London, on 18 October. Tickets available at https://lambethfringe.com/events/have-i-returned