Thursday – Patrick 1
"EXOTIC!" - a Queer Wrestling Fantasia
“But I don’t want to be a wrestler!” says Gruff Dryll: “I’m a super-serious gayboy poet: I care about gayness, community and truth, whereas wrestling is all fake and SUPER-heterosexual.”
“Exotic!” is the rags-to-spandex story of a tender queer soul climbing the ranks of an industry where selling your persona is everything. Well, that and punching people, obviously.
Fusing the brilliant artforms of musical theatre and pro-wrestling (yes, with ACTUAL wrestling in an ACTUAL ring!) it’s a laugh-out-loud thrill ride that asks: in a polarised world, what happens when your need for community solidarity conflicts with your urge to WIN?
Screwball Pop Extravaganza with Fighting
In development with partial draft
Seeking venue partnership to work towards the completion of the script and subsequent first full reading in 2026
Death of grandparent
Homophobia / queerphobia and othering
Swearing
Lots of simulated fighting
Cast of 8-10, band of 5-6
Meet the Writers
Seiriol Davies [pronounced SAY-re-OLL] is an award-winning writer, composer, songwriter and performer from ruralest Wales. They make fierce, camp musicals… Read more
Seiriol Davies [pronounced SAY-re-OLL] is an award-winning writer, composer, songwriter and performer from ruralest Wales. They make fierce, camp musicals that attack knotty political questions in a cloud of glitter. In 2022, they were selected as one of The Stage newspaper’s 25 figures to shake up the theatre landscape in the next 25 years. Seiriol’s previous includes "How To Win Against History" (the best reviewed show at the Edinburgh Fringe 2016, and a subsequent UK tour and extended sellout run at the Young Vic), described as “a work of genius” by the Telegraph. It is returning in 2025 in a new production produced by Francesca Moody Productions at Bristol Old Vic and Edinburgh Fringe. "Betty: A Sort of Musical", (Royal Exchange) a smash hit about an am-dram group, co-written and co-starring Maxine Peake and currently being developed into a musical television sitcom. "Milky Peaks" (Theatr Clwyd), a super-camp fable about pinkwashing and the rise of the Far Right which saw Seiriol described as “the 21st Century’s post-modern Ivor Novello”). "Branwen: Dadeni" (Wales Millennium Centre) a ferocious mythic tragedy, co-written with Hanna Jarman and Elgan Rhys which was the largest professional production yet staged in the Welsh language.
Team
Writer – Seiriol Davies
Producer – Jafar Iqbal
Co-Directors – Debbie Hannan & Matthew Holmquist
Wrestling Director – Michael Reece
Wrestling producer – Heather Bandenburg
Musical Director – Geraint Evans
Technician – Ed Gamester
Cast:
James Ifan, Rebecca Hayes, Cadi Mullane, Byddia Lewis, Elis Myers-Sleight, Kate O’Brien, Rayne Leverkusen, Sid Scala, Nightshade, Cassius, KM Lane