Electropop Musical FAIRLIGHT Heads Out on UK Tour

Fairlight, a brand-new electropop musical about queer invisibility in tennis heads out of tour to venues across the UK.

Premiering in 2025, Fairlight tells the origin story of lawn tennis as an opposites-attract queer love story through music, storytelling and performance.

The show is on tour from 13 May until 22 August and visits Birmingham, Wimbledon, Nottingham, Hove, Harlow and Crawley. Tickets via: https://fairlightmusical.co.uk/tour-dates/

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.

Alexandra Taylor, co-artistic director and librettist said: “We know that there are people in history who lived and died without their queerness being known. There are so many invisible stories from the past that we will never know about because they have left no evidence behind.

“What we are doing with this show is asking the question ‘what if Harry and Augurio were two of those invisible queer people?' We can never know, but the show looks at the ‘what if?' question. We are not telling a gay love story from the past that nobody knew about, we are asking ‘what if?' and I think it's important that we engage with the fact that there is no evidence and what that evidence would be if there was.”

With music inspired by the sounds of the Fairlight CMI, the world's first commercially available sampler, the songs are interwoven with accounts of Victorian prosecutions of gay men, demonstrations of the rules of lawn tennis and interviews with current LGBT+ tennis professionals.

Michael Wolters, composer and co-artistic director says: “Having been brought up in the eighties, this music of the Fairlight CMI is very dear to me and then there was this great coincidence of the house being called Fairlight. A lot of our sounds will be very recognisable. It's not just the samples from the demo discs as used by Kate Bush and the Pet Shop Boys and Peter Gabriel and so on. We also sampled some tennis sounds so there is a song that is full of grunting, and we have ball sounds and umpire announcements.”

Fairlight includes interviews with current LGBTQ+ tennis professionals including Brian Vahaly, president of the US Tennis Association, Ian Pearson-Brown, founder of campaign organisation Pride in Tennis, Gigi Fernandez, former world number one, and Lucy Shuker, Wimbledon finalist and the UK's number one female wheelchair tennis player.

Gigi Fernandez said: “I think it's very important to have these types of projects, that help people understand the struggles of the previous generations, so that we don't have to repeat them going forward.”

Lucy Shuker said: “I think it's really important to have conversations, and to make people feel comfortable to have these conversations. I embrace being my true self, I can just be me, and by being me, I play the best tennis.”

Michael Wolters added: “Whatever sport you turn to, maybe apart from gymnastics and diving which are sports that have openly gay competitors, there is a massive problem of homophobia and the question for us was why?”

Fairlight has been supported by:

• Arts Council England
• Birmingham City University
• Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
• Edgbaston Archery & Lawn Tennis Society
• LTA
• Pride in Tennis
• The Hinrichsen Foundation
• The John Feeney Charitable Trust
• The Grimmitt Trust
• The Marchus Trust
• The Vaughan Williams Foundation
• Warwickshire Tennis

Edgbaston Archery & Lawn Tennis Society have supported the project from early development stages through to the performance in May. The team are delighted to be performing the first show of the tour at the place where the story actually took place.

Further information via: www.fairlightmusical.co.uk

Tour dates:

• 13 May 2026 – Birmingham, Edgbaston Archery & Lawn Tennis Society, 6.15pm BUY YOUR TICKETS Presented as part of Flatpack Festival
• 9 July 2026 – Wimbledon, Wimbledon Park Tennis Courts, time TBC Tickets on sale soon
• 12th July 2026 - Nottingham, Nottingham Tennis Centre, 2pm BUY YOUR TICKETS
• 31st July 2026 - Hove, Hove Park Tennis Club, 6pm BUY YOUR TICKETS
• 8th August 2026 – Harlow, Harlow Tennis Club, 6pm BUY YOUR TICKETS
• 22nd August 2026 - Crawley, Crawley Pride main stage, 4pm Please note: This is a concert version of the show BUY YOUR TICKETS

Fairlight is a brand-new electropop musical about queer invisibility in tennis from the minds of Alexandra Taylor and Michael Wolters.