Moving, humorous and evocative, "Good People" looks at urgent contemporary issues through the test of personal relationships. The play received critical acclaim and popular acclaim in Singapore, and travelled to Kuala Lumpur in May 2008. It was nominated in 7 categories of the 2008 Life! Theatre Awards and won the Best Original Script award. In October/November 2008, The Necessary Stage staged "Gemuk Girls", a bold and darkly humorous look at family politics and the politics of the day. "Gemuk Girls" was a three-hander, featuring a mother-daughter duo Kartini (a loud and overbearing hippie mother) and Juliana (a straitlaced young woman on the threshold of entering politics). One day, they receive shocking news about Kartini's father who had been arrested and detained in the 1960s. The play dealt with the controversial issue of ex-political detainees and detention without trial, but went beyond the political realm to look at how it impacted personal and family life and history. It received critical acclaim from various presses, and toured to Kuala Lumpur in December 2008. "Gemuk Girls" also swept the Best Script, Production of the Year and Best Actor (for Najib Soiman's portrayal of the ex-political detainee) at the 2009 Life! Theatre Awards. It was successfully restaged with the original cast in November 2011 with a sold-out run. "October" was a main season production staged by The Necessary Stage in 2012, and it was a re-working of the company's previous work of the same title in 1996. It looks at elderly residents of a precinct undergoing upgrading, and their relationship with one another and a young property agent eager to have them sell their homes. In 2013, The Necessary Stage embarked on an exciting intercultural production entitled "Mobile 2: Flat Cities". On the cusp of Japan's surrender during World War II, a Japanese general suffers a stroke and is tended to by a Malay gardener. As they spar, having heated debates about the war, the present is revealed: a Japanese man in a relationship with an Indian woman in Kuala Lumpur; his ex-wife coming to grips with an astrologer's predictions; their son, studying in the United States and confronted by his classmates about Japan's past. A multilingual production featuring artists from Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, "Mobile II: Flat Cities" cast the spotlight on stories of personal, social and universal struggles across Asian cities. It was well received and travelled to Kuala Lumpur for performances after the run in Singapore.