EGGS AREN'T THAT EASY TO MAKE to Play at Riverside Studios This April
Queer rom-com explores IVF challenges and chosen family at Riverside Studios
By: Stephi Wild Feb. 11, 2026
Celebrating queer joy and the family we choose, Claire and Best Friend Dan make a drunken pact at a 21st birthday party - he will be her sperm donor if she's ever in a lesbian relationship when she's older. Flash forward a decade and Dan, in a relationship himself with girlfriend Naomi who doesn't want children, is ready to honour the agreement when Claire and girlfriend Lou struggle to find a donor. As IVF treatments, ante-natal classes and the looming realities of parenthood test the foursome's friendship and relationships, Eggs Aren't That Easy To Make explores our limits and boundaries, while highlighting the additional obstacles that LGBTQ+ couples face with warmth, heart and humour.
Written by Maria Telnikoff (My Dad Wears A Dress, Nottingham Playhouse and All The Men Are Going To Hate Me Soho Theatre) and directed by Lauren Tranter (With Nail and Without Nail Camden Peoples Theatre and Close Enough to Touch Theatre 503), Eggs Aren't That Easy To Make debuted at last year's Edinburgh Fringe to critical acclaim.
Maria Telnikoff, the writer, said “it's important to see joyful, queer narratives (queer joy is radical!) and for queer people to have the ability to dream about futures involving family. The genre of rom com, so often the domain of heterosexual romance, provides a fun and optimistic lens through which a queer love story can be told.''
Big Sofa Theatre is a queer focussed, new writing company led by Maria Telnikoff and Lauren Tranter. They create character driven work with actors at the forefront of the creative process. Big Sofa focuses on the personal, the intimate and the joyful as a microcosm of the societal.
For fifty years, Riverside Studios has been the gathering place for an extraordinary mix of innovative theatre, film, comedy, art, dance, music and television. We are a cultural hub that has attracted some of the world's most celebrated creative talent and provided a platform for emerging artists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. As we prepare to mark our half-century in the spring with a series of special events, we remain driven by a belief in the power of creativity to bring people together, unlock potential and spark positive change in the world.
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