Singer-actor Hins Cheung channels his inner madness for his stage role in Equus

What has happened to Hins Cheung King-hin in the past few weeks is unfortunate, and more than a little ironic. Since the announcement that he would take the lead role in a Cantonese revival of Equus, the 33-year-old Canto-pop star has persistently fielded questions about whether he will strip naked on stage.

“The bottom-line, since day one, is that I am ready to appear stark naked,” he says with a laugh when we meet at the production’s rehearsal venue, a vacant office in a Wan Chai commercial building that overlooks The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the venue for the play.

“The issue has become the focus of the public, which isn’t a problem for me, but that wasn’t the original intention when we decided to do this.”

Peter Shaffer’s 1973 psychodrama was most famously adapted for film by Sidney Lumet in 1977, and was recently revived in London and on Broadway with the star of the Harry Potter series, Daniel Radcliffe. The drama’s storyline – one man’s near-religious pursuit of his passion in the face of social norms – has unintended echoes in Cheung’s artistic endeavour to star in the play, clouded as it is by the concern about the amount of skin he’ll show.

Set against the conservative values of Hong Kong’s overwhelmingly Chinese population, the lure of a celebrity in a full-frontal nude appearance is certainly enough to become a publicity stunt. It has, however, also threatened to turn Cheung’s quest as a performing artist into an afterthought.

For all the sensational headlines, it is easy to forget that here is an untrained newcomer to the theatre, taking on a challenging role in a classic play with an illustrious production history.