MELBOURNE PRIDE GUIDE: Much To Do With Law, But More To Do With Love

Straight from the tortured poets department, 2025’s Queer Playwriting Award winner, ‘Much To Do With Law, But More To Do With Love’, returns to Naarm in 2026 with a fierce blend of legal drama and a beautiful story about queer heritage.

Written and performed by Melbourne-based activist and lawyer Danish Sheikh, the play is a personal and powerful response to the 2018 legalisation of homosexuality in India. It’s based on Sheikh’s own fight to repeal India’s Section 377 — the 158-year-old British/Indian colonial law that criminalised LGBTQIA+ rights.

Brought to life with pop anthems from heartbreak mastermind Taylor Swift, Sheikh takes audiences behind the scenes of losing a landmark case in 2013, exploring the complex lives of queer people in India who lived in the shadow of this oppression. ‘Much To Do With Law’ immerses spectators in a rush of reflections, raising the curtains on betrayal, longing and heartbreak. It asks: what do you do when the law breaks your heart — or worse, shatters the dreams you spent a decade fighting for as a human rights lawyer?

Giving historic, humorous and fearless storytelling, this is a queer law story that hits different — and will hit straight to the heart.

Much To Do With Law, But More To Do With Love

4-7 February 2026, Wed-Sat | 7pm
Gasworks Theatre, Albert Park