S’pore playwright Jonathan Lim, who wrote Chestnuts parodies, dies at 50

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S’pore playwright Jonathan Lim, who wrote Chestnuts parodies, dies at 50​

Playwright Jonathan Lim with (from left) his sisters Angelyn Choo and Diana Choo and mother Irene Phang. PHOTO: COURTESY OF DIANA CHOO

Clement Yong
UPDATED JAN 24, 2025, 09:14 PM

SINGAPORE – Singapore playwright Jonathan Lim, who founded the beloved Chestnuts parody series, has died aged 50.

The news has shocked the theatre community. Family and friends said there had been no outward signs of illness.

Lim’s close friend of 18 years, lawyer Luke Kwek, found him unconscious in his flat on Jan 23 after family members had been unable to contact him. The two “geeked out about everything together” and had a mutual love for horror films, sometimes watching one a week.

For the intensely private Lim, work always came first, Mr Kwek told The Straits Times. “He was a positive, optimistic person who was so easy to be around, always full of energy. When a project of his ran into trouble and he was not going to get paid, he persevered with it simply because he was so passionate about what he was doing.”

Lim’s script-writing credits run the gamut – from a pantomime adaptation of Charles Dickens (A $ingapore Carol, 2018) to a gripping virtual whodunnit (The Bride Always Knocks Twice – Killer Secrets, 2021) to an immersive show where audiences relived Singapore’s final stand against the Japanese in a World War II bunker in Fort Canning (No Question Of Surrender, 2024).

His signature Chestnuts revue was a light-hearted roast of local and international current affairs, and was Singapore’s longest-running live parody sketch show beginning in 1996.

He combined his dual interests of history and the supernatural to create probably his most ambitious work for The Theatre Practice, Four Horse Road. The popular promenade theatre piece, which was staged three times, took audiences through two Waterloo Street heritage buildings to witness vignettes inspired by the area’s past.

The Theatre Practice’s artistic director Kuo Jian Hong considers Lim one of her closest collaborators and said the news had hit her hard. The two were in the midst of writing a new Mandarin musical titled Partial Eclipse Of The Heart, slated for August 2025.

She said: “Jon was one of a kind: quirky, mischievous, imaginative, curious and a hell of a writer, who could not refuse a good creative challenge. As a playwright, he found humour in heavy subjects, and profundity in the ridiculous.”

Lim loved telling Singapore stories and loved Singapore theatre. “He has left us with a wealth of works, and I’m sure we will be performing his words for a long time to come,” Kuo added.

Nelson Chia, co-founder of Chinese theatre company Nine Years Theatre, said he had always admired Lim for his “adventurous spirit in exploring different facets of his art”.

He was Lim’s theatre studies classmate at the National University of Singapore and marked his Chestnuts debut in its last edition in 2022.

The two had been talking about collaborating on Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot.

“We won’t have the chance now,” Chia lamented. “He is a very talented artist – too often understated, and one with artistic integrity.

“He is someone who loves people around him and treasures relationships a lot. I’m glad to have been his friend. He is sorely missed.”

Lim’s close friend of 25 years, actress Judy Ngo, said he helped her realise that humour came in many forms.

As relative strangers, Lim once took the initiative to start a conversation with her. She said he lived and breathed theatre. “You could get script updates from him at any time of the night, which also meant that as a friend, you can turn to him and ask him for help at any time.”

Lim’s sister, Ms Diana Choo, 36, described him as a “wonderful man and brother who loves spending time with us, brilliant, very insightful, very logical and kind-hearted”.

His unexpected death brought the Brunei-based family back to Singapore on Jan 24, after they had an early Chinese New Year reunion recently.

Ms Choo said: “One of the things I most admire about him is how brave he is for doing what he loves and overcoming challenges to do it. He never conformed to the norm.”

Lim is survived by his father Lim Sok Chek, his mother Irene Phang and his sisters Diana and Angelyn Choo, 34.

His wake will be held at Singapore Casket from Jan 26, 3.30pm, on level 3. The funeral service is on Jan 27 at 5pm.