It's human nature to want to see your life reflected back as art. It’s exactly this kind of harmless narcissism that wins awards for movies about movie-making – think The Disaster Artist or La La Land. The newest play from the Phnom Penh Players, Missionaries, Mercenaries & Monsters, an original work, fits squarely in that tradition.

It’s a play about Phnom Penh expats for expats, written, directed and acted by expats. Although, in this case, foreigners may not exactly like what they see when they look in the mirror.

The play follows a group of people – all regulars at the same bar – as they navigate life in Phnom Penh. We see their ups and downs, their first dates and break-ups, their business struggles and successes. It’s the characters who drive the action forward, rather than a plot in the traditional sense of the word.

All the stereotypical Phnom Penh characters make an appearance: the bright-eyed recent university graduate embarking on a six-month stint at an NGO, the jaded expat who fancies herself wise to the grittier underbelly of life in the city, and the party-hopping young foreigner, living from cocktail to cocktail.