A gripping queer drama about grief, secrecy and the violence hiding beneath respectable family life is coming to London. Trust us, this is one you’ll want in the diary.
Queer theatre doesn’t always need to be uplifting, glittery or send us dancing into the street afterwards. Sometimes it should grab us by the collar, make us deeply uncomfortable and leave us talking about it all the way home.
Tom at the Farm looks set to do precisely that when the acclaimed Brazilian production makes its London premiere at the Barbican Theatre from 13 to 17 October.
Based on Michel Marc Bouchard’s play Tom à la ferme, the story follows Tom as he travels to a remote farm for his boyfriend’s funeral. Once there, he discovers something devastating. His partner’s mother had no idea that her son was gay, or that Tom was the man he loved.
To preserve the family’s version of events, Tom is pulled into a dangerous web of lies, manipulation and psychological control, much of it enforced by his late partner’s older brother. Grief and desire collide with shame, repression and violence as the farm becomes an increasingly threatening place from which Tom can’t easily escape.
Cheery? Not especially. Compelling? By all accounts, absolutely.
This production began life in a small theatre in Rio de Janeiro in 2017, created by actor, adaptor and producer Armando Babaioff with director Rodrigo Portella. Nearly a decade later, it has clocked up more than 600 performances, attracted an audience of over 250,000 people and collected 27 awards. It has travelled across Brazil and on to Montreal, Avignon, Paris, Brussels, Edinburgh and Seoul. Now, finally, London gets its turn.
The staging sounds extraordinary too. Forget a tidy farmhouse kitchen and tasteful rural scenery. The performers work across a plastic-covered stage layered with mud, creating unstable ground beneath their feet as the story descends further into danger. Mud, blood and shadows fill the space, while movement and physical performance bring the unspoken tensions between the characters horribly close to the surface.
Although the original play was written in Canada, its exploration of homophobia found an urgent connection with Brazil, particularly as anti-LGBTQ+ hostility and political division intensified. Its themes travel far beyond one country.
Many gay men will recognise something in the story’s central horror, even if we’ve never faced circumstances as extreme as Tom’s. It’s the realisation that someone we loved had to divide their life into separate versions. The fear of meeting a partner’s family and being introduced as a “friend”. The exhausting calculation of when it’s safe to tell the truth, when to stay quiet and what that silence might cost.
That’s what makes Tom at the Farm feel so relevant to our community. Beneath its thriller-like tension lies a story about the damage caused when queer love is forced into secrecy, and what can happen when masculinity becomes tangled up with control, shame and violence.
Led by Babaioff and an acclaimed Brazilian ensemble, the production is performed entirely in Portuguese with English surtitles. It runs for approximately two hours without an interval, so perhaps go easy on the pre-theatre Pinot.
This won’t be a fluffy night out, and nor should it be. The production contains sexual content, nudity, physical violence and psychological violence, with an age recommendation of 18+. What it promises is something raw, physical and fiercely political. The kind of theatre that follows you out of the auditorium and refuses to leave quietly.
Tom at the Farm (Tom na Fazenda)
Tuesday 13 to Saturday 17 October 2026
Barbican Theatre
Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
Running time: Approximately two hours, no interval
Language: Portuguese with English surtitles
Age guidance: 18+
Tickets: From £29, including transaction fee
Find performance times and book tickets through the Barbican website.
