What do you do when the law breaks your heart? Or worse – when it shatters the dreams you spent a decade fighting for as a human rights lawyer? If you’re Danish Sheikh, you turn to the world’s most celebrated philosopher of heartbreak: Ms Taylor Alison Swift.
In Much to do with Law, but More to do with Love, Melbourne-based playwright and law lecturer Danish Sheikh transforms courtroom trauma, queer resistance and pop music confessionals into a whip-smart lecture-performance about betrayal, longing, and the strange intimacy of living with the law.
Drawing from Sheikh’s real-life role in India’s fight to repeal Section 377 – the colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality – the show charts the fallout of losing the case in 2013, and the unexpected forms of hope that survive. Part courtroom drama, part heartbreak comedy, part pop confessional: this is law like you’ve never seen it before.
“The law was my great love story,” says Sheikh. “I wanted to know why I kept going back – and how to keep believing in something that doesn’t always believe in you.”
The show premiered as a 20-minute excerpt at Midsumma 2025, where it won the Queer Playwriting Award to rapturous audience response. Sheikh has since been a participant in Malthouse Theatre artist development programme, part of the Melbourne Theatre Company’s Cybec Electric programme, and Aphids’ Odyssey Odyssey programme. This full-length debut at Gasworks cements him as one of the most original new voices in Australian theatre: funny, fearless, and formally inventive.
Directed by Vidya Rajan (Crisis Actor, Arts House), with design by Asha Barr (Running into the Sun, Melbourne Fringe Theatre Award winner 2024) and dramaturgical consultancy by Gabrielle Fallen (Mature Skin, Cybec Electric 2024), Much to do with Law brings together a powerhouse creative team known for known for blending form, theory, and feeling with rare precision.
Much to do with Law, but More to do with Love
Theatre – Gasworks Creative Precinct, 21 Graham Street, Albert Park
Season: 4 – 7 February 2026
Information and Bookings: www.gasworks.org.au
Image: Danish Sheikh – photo by Tom Noble