Queerguru talks with writer LOUIS WHARTON about his new play ‘BREEDERS’ on how the AIDS pandemic reshaped the future of his hometown

Louis Wharton is an Artist In Residence with the  SHOUT FESTIVAL  which is focused on celebrating the best of queer culture in the Midlands of the UK. He is currently working ‘on ‘Breeders’ which is why QUEERGURU was so keen to talk with

Part documentary, part play, part late-night dance party, Breeders is a queer play about extinction. Fifty years apart, two couples meet on a dancefloor somewhere in Birmingham. Warm pints, sticky floors, loud music – you know the type. Utilizing archival research and direct verbatim testimony, Breeders aims to place lived, local experience of Birmingham at its center, digging around in the messy nature of queer desire, fertility., and what it means to have ‘no future’.

It’s unusual to find a story that is about the AIDS pandemic that is not set in NY or London, and one that is written by someone too young to have lived through it. It is so very important that such significant passages in queer history are recorded for future generations especially by talented queer voices such as Louis Wharton.