Award-winning LGBTQ+ theatre heads to Waterside this autumn
Waterside in Sale is putting LGBTQ+ stories centre stage this autumn, with a run of theatre spanning love, masculinity, sexuality, dementia and our increasingly screen-dominated lives.
The programme includes four productions across October and November, led by Hannah Maxwell’s (above) award-winning TURN YOUR F***ING PHONES OFF, which comes to Sale from 20 to 22 October following a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Commissioned by Waterside, the darkly funny solo show explores human connection in the Information Age, taking aim at doomscrolling, technology and an increasingly polarised world.
Before that, The Luxurious Time: A Queer Love Story arrives at Waterside on Thursday 15 October. Written and performed by Martin Lewton, the deeply personal production tells the true story of Lewton’s life with his partner as the man he loves develops Alzheimer’s disease.
Using verbatim dialogue between the couple, the show explores love, ageing and dementia within a long-term gay relationship, asking what happens to love when memory begins to disappear.
On Friday 16 and Saturday 17 October, Waterside welcomes Close Enough To Touch, a one-person play from writer Henry Roberts. Presented by Red Ladder Theatre Company and Silent Uproar, the play follows a young man who has a girlfriend, is looking for work and secretly spends his free time cruising in men’s toilets.
Described as funny, intimate and raw, the production explores desire, secrecy, sexuality and masculinity and how long we can hide parts of ourselves from the people around us.
The autumn programme continues on Tuesday 03 November with I Was A Teenage Bisexual, from award-winning theatre-maker Polis Loizou. Blending vintage horror B-movie with a 90s teen flick, the show follows Junior, whose attempts to navigate school bullies and pressure to appear more masculine become considerably more complicated when bodies begin turning up in his small town.
Waterside says the programme forms part of its wider commitment to supporting LGBTQ+ artists and stories throughout the year, rather than only during Pride. In recent years, the Sale venue has commissioned and supported artists including Sam Danson, Nathaniel Hall and Minute Taker, while earlier this year it produced its first in-house theatre production, Clothes Swap, created with and for young LGBTQ+ people.
Full details and tickets for Waterside’s autumn LGBTQ+ programme are available at watersidearts.org/LGBTQ.
