Do it yourself | Up Next Festival 26

Friday 27th March

7:30pm

Part of a double bill

Between the carefully designed displays of Warrington IKEA we meet Saffy and Mags, a young queer couple shopping for their first home together. After enjoying a dining experience of Swedish meatballs and Dime Bar cake, they head for the exit only to find themselves back in the cafeteria. 

Realising they are trapped in the labyrinth of potted plants and lamps, their frustration builds and the couple descend into an argument, exposing the challenges bubbling under the surface of their relationship.

The work is being developed by Lottie Lazenby and Mollie Macpherson, two Liverpool-based theatre-makers launching a new company focused on playful, accessible and collaborative storytelling.

Do It Yourself aims to highlight the nuances of what it means to be queer and how we express queerness. We’d like to invite our audience to think about their own identity expression, considering how we attach our identity to our partners, our careers and even our choice of IKEA furniture. 

Perhaps the NODMAST mushroom lamp in baby pink is a not so subtle attempt to demonstrate your ‘quirky’ personality to unwitting house guests. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that the ALEFJÄLL desk chair gives the impression that you are a high flying professional (who definitely does not cry on their lunch breaks). 

Ultimately, leading to the question, who are we separate from all of our stuff? Who are we, when we are truly on our own?