Romancero Books with the support of the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Spanish Embassy in London,

AC/E Programme for the Internalisation of Spanish Culture presents the VI London Festival of Queer Spanish Culture

Stage reading - play

*Diamond Dust* with Bertie Taylor-Smith and Pedro Leandro. Written by Pau Coya

Synopsis

When Dani reports being the victim of a brutal homophobic attack, his story goes viral nationwide. Social media erupts, he makes front-page news and becomes the subject of televised debate shows, and the story even prompts the country's leading political figures to speak out in solidarity. However, something about his testimony doesn't seem to convince the investigators assigned to the case — and, above all, it fails to convince public opinion.

Did he make the whole thing up? And if so, what could have driven him to do it? Can an alleged false report discredit the suffering of an entire community? Stigma and media pile-on go hand in hand in this piece, inspired by a real case.

Working at the crossroads of true crime and social drama, the play interrogates the uneasy relationship between visibility and credibility that LGBTQ+ victims so often face: the same media machine that can turn an act of violence into a national cause can just as quickly turn its subject into a suspect. Rather than offering easy answers, the piece sits with the discomfort of not knowing, using Dani's case as a lens through which to examine how doubt, shame and collective anxiety circulate once a story escapes the control of the person who lived it — and what is lost, for an entire community, when a single contested testimony is allowed to stand in for the truth of them all.

Bios

Performance in English.

Check the Festival's website to know about our other events:

**https://bit.ly/LFQSC26**,