Hot Gay Time Machine

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]