Eastern Queers Vs. Western Gods! East Asian Queer theatre hits the UK Stage
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An artist talk on queer East Asian storytelling, family, faith & making theatre in the UK.
To view the detail and book your free ticket, please click here.
Guanghwa Bookshop,112 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1D 5EJ, London, England
Friday, 26 Jun • 7 PM - 8:15 PM
As a special event for this year’s Pride Month and Pride Book Fair 4.0, we are thrilled to welcome Oh My My, a London-based East Asian queer theatre collective, alongside At Once Productions, for a conversation around their OffFest Finalist production Be Gay, For God’s Sake.
Together, we’ll explore the joys and sorrows, the connections and distances, of East Asian queer experiences across generations.
A quick note on language: This event will be held primarily in English, with a few references in Mandarin/Chinese along the way. But we'll keep things flexible throughout, and the Q&A and discussion are fully open to both English and Mandarin/Chinese. Please feel very welcome to ask questions, share thoughts, or jump into the conversation in whichever language feels most comfortable to you.
Synopsis
Be Gay, For God’s Sake, is an OffFest Finalist production for 2026.
When Shasha returns to China from the UK and comes out as gay, her Christian mother, Song, doesn’t take it well. Thank God—divine intervention arrives to save the day. Or, tries to. God forces Song to relive a buried past: a not-so-innocent “friendship” with her daughter’s schoolteacher, Yi. Things spiral. Fast. And God? Not as all-powerful as They think.
Be Gay, For God’s Sake by Oh My My is a sharp, time-bending queer comedy drama laced with satirical mischief. Inspired by real events, it explores queerness, family, and the weight of what goes unsaid—where identities collide with culture, shame, and generational silence.
Told with cheekiness, a bit of God, and a lot of tenderness, this is a fast-paced journey across continents and timelines. It interrogates the tension between East Asian queer experience and Western expectations—with a mother and daughter trying, against the odds, to understand each other.
About Oh My My
Oh My My is a creative collaboration that tells East Asian queer stories inspired by the members' lived experiences.
Their work blends physical theatre, puppetry, adaptation, and new writing to explore identity, intergenerational silence, and cultural memory.
Their most recent production, Be Gay, For God’s Sake (Voila! Festival, Lambeth Fringe Festival, Totnes Fringe Festival, 2025), is an OffFest Finalist production for 2026. They previously collaborated on the sold-out production A Thousand Papercuts Still Skin Deep (Barons Court Theatre, London, 2022), and they continue to develop work that is emotionally bold, theatrically playful, and politically resonant.
Additional Information:
- Please kindly note that once the event has started, we may not be able to welcome late arrivals into the venue. We recommend arriving on time to ensure a smooth check-in.
- Due to limited space and safety considerations, we strongly recommend booking your ticket in advance. While walk-ins may be accommodated, it will depend on available capacity and cannot be guaranteed.
- Please kindly note that the venue does not have accessible facilities.
- This event will primarily be hosted in the basement and please note that seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
- We will be taking photos during this event for marketing purposes. If you do not wish to appear in these photos, please inform our staff and ask for a sign before the event begins.