Thursday – Patrick 2
Fairlight
Fairlight is an electro-pop musical, performed on a tennis court, telling the origin story of lawn tennis through a queer lens. Songs inspired by the iconic Fairlight sampler tell an imagined romance between the two men who invented lawn tennis at a house called Fairlight in 1865. Their story is contextualised by accounts of prosecutions of gay men in the Victorian era, extracts from the laws of tennis, and personal testimonies from current tennis professionals. Fairlight shines a light on the absence of any openly LGBT+ professional male players in 160 years of tennis history.
queer electropop, historical/contemporary
Showcase
We are currently raising funding to complete the show and stage eight performance at tennis clubs and community parks between August 2025 and August 2026. We would love to collaborate with more venues to be able to stage more performances. Further funding support would also help us to do this.
References to homophobia, physical violence, hanging and suicide
Cast of 9: four tennis players, two singers, two performers, one DJ
All music is pre-prepared electronic tracks
Meet the Writers
Michael Wolters
Michael Wolters is a composer of international significance and Professor of Composition at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He presented AMAECHI at… Read more
Michael Wolters
Michael Wolters is a composer of international significance and Professor of Composition at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He presented AMAECHI at the Commonwealth Games 2022, which combined the writings of the first out gay NBA Basketball player with basketball playing and music. Michael has maintained an outsider position in the world of contemporary music with works which deconstruct and question the traditional concert situation or which are designed for performance outside the concert hall.
Alexandra Taylor
Alexandra Taylor is an award-winning writer working across theatre, audio, film and BBC television. She is a core member of… Read more
Alexandra Taylor
Alexandra Taylor is an award-winning writer working across theatre, audio, film and BBC television. She is a core member of Birmingham-based writing collective Script Sirens, most recently co-producing its acclaimed SPECTRUM anthology of eight animated short films. Alex's strength is in creating quirky characters with distinctive voices and naturalistic dialogue. Much of her work features ordinary people in everyday situations, often with an absurd or surreal twist. Michael and Alex have been collaborating on creative projects for nearly 20 years, including full-length original opera ‘Ava’s Wedding’, staged by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2015.
Team
Paul Norman – arranger
Oli Clark – videographer
Jenny Bater-Sinclair – tour producer
Andy Mandoiu – producer
Alexander Kaniewski – costumes
Eliza Mcdermott – workshop leader
Oli Clark – technical director
Cast:
Tej Brindley, Alexandra Taylor, Michael Wolters, Tanna Chamberlain
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