As SMOKE prepares to tour the UK, writer and performer Alexis Gregory joins forces with Marc Svensson to create a bold, two-part theatrical experience that extends beyond the stage. Blending a gripping, darkly comic queer thriller with live post-show discussions led by You Are Loved, SMOKE confronts urgent issues around mental health, addiction and community in the digital age. Tickets are available here.
In this conversation, Lex and Marc reflect on the real-life experiences that shaped the work, the natural evolution of their collaboration, and their shared mission to open up vital, and often avoided, conversations within the LGBTQ+ community.
Alexis, SMOKE begins with such a haunting and contemporary premise. What first sparked the idea for this story?
Alexis: I was hacked, which of course is a very everyday experience now, but it was a very targeted one, with all my accounts being broken into over a few weeks, with log-ins from around the world, and my money being spent. At the same time I was observing, on social media, numerous deaths of gay men being announced, often in relation to drug misuse or suicide. In SMOKE, I explore this automatic assumption about the cause of death, which is obviously not always the case, but statistically more likely to be so than our straight counterparts. I combined these two themes as an urban queer thriller. And oh, I decided to add comedy into the mix too.
How did your collaboration around the themes of the show begin to take shape?
Alexis: Marc and I were exploring and highlighting the same themes at the same time, Marc via his organisation You Are Loved, and me via my work as a playwright, creating work about, and for, the queer community. We decided to pair up, and offer audiences a unique two part experience; I have never seen a play and community organisation partner in this way, and try to reach as many people as possible across the UK.
Marc: I completely agree with Alexis point about the shared themes. To me, it felt incredibly powerful from the outset that this wasn’t a collaboration where we had to force alignment; the themes were already shared. The work Alexis had created and the work we’re doing through You Are Loved were speaking to the same underlying reality: that too many people in our community are struggling in silence, and too many lives are being lost as a result. The collaboration really began to take shape through that recognition. The themes didn’t need to be imposed; they emerged naturally. Both the show and our campaign, The Silence Ends With Us, are rooted in the same truth: that there are conversations we’ve collectively avoided or shut down, particularly around mental health, drug misuse, and the more complex, uncomfortable parts of queer experience. What brought it together was a shared urgency. A sense that we’re at a point where continuing not to talk about these things is no longer an option. The partnership creates a space to confront those realities, and our work aims to extend that beyond the theatre into communities, into conversations, and into action.
Marc, from your perspective as founder of You Are Loved, what stood out to you about the piece when you first encountered it?
Marc: I feel like I encountered SMOKE twice, in two different but equally impactful ways. The first was when Alexis told me about it. What immediately stood out was how closely it mirrored experiences I’d had myself. Particularly that feeling of repeatedly coming across posts on social media about people in our community who have died suddenly and prematurely from suicide or drugs, and seeing any meaningful conversation about it either shut down or quickly moved past. There’s this pattern where we see something tragic, we feel it briefly, and then we collectively look away. The second encounter was seeing the show at the King’s Head Theatre. What struck me then was how powerfully it captured the difficulty of trying to make sense of people in a world that often doesn’t make sense itself. We’re living in a digital era where the boundaries between what is real and what is constructed are constantly shifting, and that has a profound impact on how we understand each other, and ourselves.
SMOKE looks unflinchingly at aspects of queer experience in a digital era. What conversations were you hoping to open up through the work?
Alexis: We hope the conversations starts in part two of the audience’s experience. You Are Loved have created a post-performance, forty-five minute community panel, with different guests each night in London, and different themes highlighted. On the road, for our regional dates, there are guests specific to that town or city, for example experts in various fields connected to SMOKE and YAL, community figures, and people with real life experiences the same as explored in SMOKE and that YAL’s vital work touches on.
Marc: In terms of the conversations the work opens up, whilst this is probably a question primarily for Alexis, it’s also deeply connected to what we’re trying to do at You Are Loved. The reality is that the way we socialise, connect, and seek intimacy has fundamentally changed. For many gay men in particular, connection, sex, and even the search for love now primarily happens through apps. That brings opportunities, but it also brings challenges—around validation, comparison, accessibility of drugs, and the speed at which things escalate. What SMOKE does so effectively is hold a mirror up to that world and ask us to sit with it, rather than scroll past it. And that’s exactly the kind of conversation we need to be having.
What have you both learned from audiences during the show’s journey so far?
Alexis: SMOKE had a mini run at the new Kings Head Theatre at the end of 2024. We went on to sell out the run. The audiences were amazing. SMOKE is challenging for the audience and asks them to take a risk with me, as the solo performer, too. Most audience members totally understood the story and themes I was trying to communicate. Audiences do want new, interesting, exciting work, that is outside the box. Well, my audience do anyway!
Marc: What I have learnt from audiences during the YAL events we have done thus far is that there is a real and urgent need for these spaces to be created, and for these sometimes difficult conversations to be had. The fundraising concert we put on in October last year at St Giles Church in Barbican, London was incredibly powerful and frankly, one of the most significant days of my life (so far). I had so many people coming up to me during and after the concert, as well as contacting me afterwards, to tell me about loved ones they personally had lost and how much it meant to them that this space had been created to recognise the loss, and to show them that they are not alone. That concert was such a beautiful and powerful reminder to me that the work we are doing matters, and the power of our community is limitless.
Looking ahead, what kinds of creative or community-led projects excite you most?
Marc: What excites me most right now is the sense I have that something is shifting within our community, and within the organisations that support it. There is a growing recognition that the issues we are facing—whether that’s loneliness, poor mental health, or drug misuse—aren’t things that any one organisation can solve in isolation. They require a collective response, and to me it feels like people are genuinely leaning into that idea of collaboration rather than competition, or working in silos. We’re also seeing more willingness to address root causes, not just symptoms. To look at things like loneliness, disconnection, and identity, and ask harder questions about why people are struggling, and not just how we respond once they are. Alongside that, I see a rise in grassroots initiatives. New community groups, peer-led spaces, and social projects are emerging directly in response to the loneliness crisis we’re seeing across the LGBTQ+ community. That’s where real change often starts – at a local, human level. Personally, the most exciting projects are the ones that bring those elements together: creative work, lived experience, community connection, and collaboration across organisations. Because ultimately, that’s how we shift culture. Not just by raising awareness, but by creating spaces where people feel seen, connected, and supported, before they reach a point of crisis.