| Hot Gay Time Machine | |
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| Awards | 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Brighton Fringe Award |
Hot Gay Time Machine is a British musical comedy cabaret show created by Zak Ghazi-Torbati and Toby Marlow, and co-authored and directed by Lucy Moss.
Hot Gay Time Machine was co-written by Ghazi-Torbati, Marlow, and Moss when they were students at Cambridge University. [1] The show debuted in February 2017 at the Corpus Playroom at Corpus Christi College. [2] [3]
Hot Gay Time Machine was performed at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning the Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence, [4] and returned for a sold-out run at the Fringe in 2018. [5] [6] The show's co-creator Toby Marlow performed in Hot Gay Time Machine at the same time that another of his co-creations, the musical Six , was on in Edinburgh. [7]
In November 2017, the show had a brief run at The Other Palace Studio. [8] From December 2018 to January 2019, it had a limited run at Trafalgar Studios in London's West End, [5] for which festive jokes were added to the show. [9] In August 2021, it had a limited run at Soho Theatre. [10]
During the 75-minute show, Marlow and Ghazi-Torbati take the audience through "a musical retrospective of their lives", travelling back to the first moment when each of them realised they were gay. [11] Other moments they re-enact humorously include coming out and anxieties in the school changing room, through to their first sexual experiences and challenges in forming friendships with other gay men. [11] The show features two life-sized cutouts of Beyoncé, [12] [6] and incorporates pop hits and dance anthems, as well as original musical numbers, including vocals and keyboard (the "hot gay music machine"). [8] [13] The finale for the show is a dance party with audience participation. [5]
Reviews of Hot Gay Time Machine have been positive, with many reviews describing it as "hysterical". [9] [11] In a review for Attitude, Steve Brown described the lyrics as "[veering] from witty to filthy" and the music as "instantly catchy and delivered with madcap energy." [5] Paul Vale also commented in The Stage on Marlow and Ghazi-Torbati's high-energy performance, and quipped, "they are bursting with gay pride, ready to party and appear to have no off-switch." [8]
The music has drawn comparisons with Six , with Alun Hood writing in Whats on Stage that "HGTM...offers a cursorily similar combination of catchy, derivative tunes overlaid with coruscating lyrics." [9]
Fiona Mountford of The Evening Standard emphasised that the show was recommended for ages 18+ for a reason, noting that Marlow and Ghazi-Torbati "are not going to spare the details or the blushes". [12]
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