Feature: Fairlight, a unique musical premiered in Birmingham Saturday @ Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society, 30 August 2025

Photo Credit: Fairlight Musical and photographer: Marcin Sz.

Feature: Fairlight, a unique musical premiered in Birmingham @ Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society, Saturday 30 August 2025

Roderick Dungate, 30 August 2025.

“This is an inspiring work.  Intriguing and informative with its variety of inputs.”

A unique musical theatre work, Fairlight , was premiered in Birmingham on 30 August 2025.  In the words of composer, Michael Wolters and Lyricist Alexandra Taylor, it aims  to examine the lack of queer, male, participation in tennis.  There is no out gay still playing, professional tennis player.  Male sports does not have a strong record on gay participation, but a zero number is quite shocking.

The two creators have formed an intriguing work.  Lawn tennis was developed in the second half of the 19th century.  In this work, readings of original rules are interspersed with real newspaper articles of men condemned for gay sex at the time, and filmed interviews about queer culture in sports from professional sports people.  There is also a live tennis match being played.  Most importantly, however, the two creators have discovered the originators of tennis, Harry Gem and Augurio Perera. However, we never learn of how the scoring system of tennis was arrived which, would be fascinating to discover in this work.

The relationship between these two men, Gem, upper class military background, and Perera, a Spanish immigrant merchant, form a powerful spine to the work.  The relationship (and we note the huge class difference) was deep and long-lasting.  The work’s creators have imagined there was a love affair between the two men.   This gives us the emotional heart of the work.  Taylor’s lyrics and Wolters’ music enable us to enter the protagonists’ minds and hearts.  Here is the dynamo, the staying power, of this new work, which follows the men’s journey from Birmingham to Leamington and back.

The game of lawn tennis was developed in Perera’s house in Edgbaston, Birmingham, called Fairlight.  Composer Wolters noticed the name of the house was shared by the first 1980s synthesizer.  He has skilfully brought the sounds and rhythms of that period into his music; he has not pastiched it, but allowed the tones to inform his work.

The result is always powerful and reaches extremely powerful at times.  The energy created draws you in.  Even more so via the talented two singers, Tej Brindley (Gem) and Harry Belton (Perera). Belton gives us Perera, openly wanting to share their love, Brindley gives us Gem, more reticent. They solo beautifully and duet stunningly.  I would wish to have sat and listened to them for hours.  Hours.

This is an inspiring work.  Intriguing and informative with its variety of inputs.

Wolters and Taylor have given themselves a tricky conundrum.  Will they leave this work as it is?  Or would they like to develop on, or in parallel, a new work.

The Gem – Perera story is incredibly moving, and emotional level is raised via the musical form.  Maybe there is a two-hander musical to be created built around the men’s story, beginning with the powerful, pounding, insistent ‘Gentlemen’ of the opening to the touching imagined moment they meet again at the first national tennis tournament.   And it would also give us the total joy of a story being told through Brindley’s and Belton’s striking, powerful, masculine voices.

(Further information about this work can be found on Dungate’s feature from July 2024.) https://www.reviewsgate.co.uk/features-interviews/an-all-singing-all-dancing-all-tennis-playing-new-music-theatre-work-to-be-unveiled-in-birmingham-by-rod-dungate?rq=fairlight