Zak Ghazi-Torbati and Toby Marlow in Hot Gay Time Machine. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography
The same team that brought the hugely acclaimed Six to the stage have brought the sold-out Edinburgh Fringe hit Hot Gay Time Machine to the West End for a ‘gaytastic Christmas season’.
TOBY MARLOW, LUCY MOSS and ZAK GHAZI-TORBATI met during their time at Cambridge where they worked together to create theatre that has proven to be hugely successful with audiences.
Hot Gay Time Machine, which won the Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence, has made its way to the Trafalgar Studios where it will run until 5 January 2019.
Here the team are in conversation with Musical Theatre Review’s Tal Fox.
How did you all meet and decide to work together?
Zak Ghazi-Torbati: There’s a part in the show where we talk about Rent. We all met properly through a production of that musical: Toby and I were playing Angel and Collin. These two [Toby and Lucy] actually met slightly before in another show.
Toby Marlow: Where I was acting in it as a vlogger and Lucy was doing my movements.
Lucy Moss: We all ended up in Rent together, I was a random dancer they brought in.
TM: Not random, you stole the show!
LM: There’s a really big theatre community at Cambridge so we all got to know each other through that.
ZG-T: We were all kind of like kindred souls because Lucy and I didn’t know each other that well at all and then we became good friends by talking about Toby.
LM: It was a bit weird because over the three years when you’re doing a show you kind of get absorbed in that, and we kept saying: “We’ve got to hang out,” and by the time the third year happened we finally all came together again.
The guys said they had a show and told me I was going to direct it and then we actually ended up doing it. So we were writing until about 3am in our dressing room in the university theatre and put it on in front of this audience and something clicked.
ZG-T: We said after our first performance we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves, we are not taking this to the Fringe, it’s not that good. By the third performance, we were saying: “It’s a crime not to show other people this work of shit!” So then we decided to go and it went really well.
You’ve mentioned that Cambridge provided a lot of support for theatre, how much did that influence everything you’ve done since?
ZG-T: I think massively, it gave us the resources to do all of this. We were able to get funding for a four-night run at a small theatre. If you wanted to put on a show, you could do it quite easily.
LM: They gave us the opportunity as they did for others who wanted to do similar things. It meant that loads of other people were working really hard and being creative, so we got to experience the most incredible performances. We can’t overstate the amount that kind of support helped us.
How did the conversation go that made you want to turn your stories into a show?
LM: We had a meeting in my room and you guys [Toby and Zak] said: “Here are all the things that we want to talk about.” They were brainstorming. But I didn’t actually know if we were going to be able to turn them into a show.
ZG-T: We did know it would be gay related.
LM: We also knew it would be called Hot Gay Time Machine, that was kind of our starting point.
TM: When we started asking” “Are we just talking about our lives or making the focus wider than that?” We didn’t know.
LM: I knew that if it was going to be about their lives, it still needed an arc. There was an argument over which one was the Beyoncé so it came out of that! A bunch of ideas came together and were put in a structure and then we were changing it and changing it over the last year and a half.
I felt quite a responsibility to make sure we were saying what the guys wanted to say, whereas, in the beginning, we were just doing it for fun. Now that more people are seeing it, we’re all thinking about what we’re saying and what statement we’re making. About how we’re going to be inclusive but also how we’re not going to speak for other people.
It’s somewhat autobiographical, do you worry about being too exposed in this show?
ZG-T: I guess the rewards that come from sharing our stories make it worth it. Loads of our friends who have come to watch it have had a great laugh, but have also said: “Oh my God, that’s happened to me.”
TM: It also feels very much, when we’re doing the show, we’re playing the characters of Zak and Toby in Hot Gay Time Machine as opposed to being ourselves. There’s a distinction, we’re getting into a role. There’s a song about coming out to our parents and the way we do it in the show is very different to how it happened in real life for us, but we do things with a positive spin on them.
ZG-T: I really enjoy it. The coming out story might not have actually happened to us, but the situation we create on stage is serious, funny and moving all at the same time. And for me, it gives an idea of what parents should say to their children if they come out to.
There’s the moment in Love, Simon when he’s about to come out to his mum in the car and I just remember watching it in the cinema and every single gay man had the same reaction, just stomach churning, and I think when you watch this you just know it’s about to happen.
Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow
TM: In the original version of Hot Gay Time Machine there’s a whole section that just didn’t exist that’s about our friendship. It’s the moment that we never spoke about, one time we like snogged, and we hadn’t really spoken about it between us so it wasn’t in the show.
Before we took it to Edinburgh we thought we’re doing a show about our lives, let’s talk about this thing that happened, and we ended up writing a funny song about it. So now that experience is a fun memory for me and one of my favourite songs to do in the show. It’s quite fun creating a narrative from these moments in silly ways.
Have you had any unexpected responses to the show?
TM: One time there was this drunk guy who just kept shouting: “Gay!” and our response was: “Oh, I think you’re right, it’s amazing! So well observed, a round of applause around the room.” It’s been really positive.
Do you have to adjust the show based on the social climate at the time of the performance?
ZG-T: There’s this one satirical joke at the beginning – because the whole joke it that we’re really bad at satire jokes – but even to write a bad satire joke we had to think about what is current.
TM: It’s crazy with the social climate and how rapidly things are changing in terms of what’s appropriate to say in terms of women and in term of queer issues and all social justice topics. Every time we do the show we begin to think: “Oh wow, that joke doesn’t sit as well with audiences as it did three months ago.”
LM: Comedy is so reliant on the way that the audience feels, even location wise. We did a gig at a feminist charity night and it was interesting to see what went really well and what didn’t work.
What can people expect from the show?
ZG-T: A musical extravaGAYnza.
LM: Lots of comedy songs, aggressive dance routines, hopefully uproarious fun, full of pride, full of joy, very celebratory.
TM: And a few emosh moments here and there to keep you on your toes.
LM: The title kind of says it all.
Six is heading back to the West End in the new year, will you be making revisions to that too?
TM: We’re adding three more hours, it’s going to be in two parts, both called three. No, we’re going to make a few little tweaks here and there.
LM: We’ve got one major scene change to do.
TM: [Jokingly] We’re going to cut Anne Boleyn from the show, waste of space.
ZG-T: And I will be playing Henry in the show.
TM: A few revisions but no drastic changes.
Hot Gay Time Machine continues at the Trafalgar Studios, London until 5 January 2019.
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