Fairlight

About this event

Fairlight is a brand-new electropop musical about queer invisibility in tennis, which takes place on a tennis court with live tennis playing. Having premiered in Birmingham in 2025, Fairlight will be on tour across the UK from May through to August, opening at Edgbaston Archery & Lawn Tennis Society on 13 May 2026 as part of Flatpack Festival, taking in tennis courts in Wimbledon and culminating at Crawley Pride.

Fairlight retells the origin story of lawn tennis as an opposites-attract queer love story from the minds of Alexandra Taylor and Michael Wolters and is a musical that straddles the line between art and activism. For decades, professional tennis has dazzled with its glamour, grit, and greatness. But even under the bright lights of centre court, there are stories left in the shadows - stories of queer athletes who played not just against opponents, but against silence, shame, and systems that rendered them invisible. This musical gives voice to those unheard and unseen - not by rewriting history, but by shining a light on the stories that history left out.

The musical pays homage to Fairlight, the house in Edgbaston, Birmingham where Augurio Perera lived and where Harry Gem and he invented lawn tennis in the 1860s. Their relationship - a blend of friendship and potential romantic speculation - forms a pivotal narrative thread in the musical, connecting the origins of tennis to themes of queer representation.