We talk to Joseph Aldous about his new show, Get Happy, his inspiration and motivation, as well as his thoughts on our approach to happiness. Get Happy runs at Omnibus Theatre, 1 – 12 July 2025.
You wrote Get Happy with the Soho Writers’ Lab. First, tell us about that experience.
Soho Writers’ Lab was fantastic, eye-opening, and not nerve wracking in the slightest. I got onto the Lab having written a grand total of two pages (which turned into a scene in this play) and a lot of really terrible, very emo phone notes. That basically meant that I spent the first few months of the Lab feeling like a total impostor, while being surrounded by brilliant, exciting writers. But the Soho really taught me that plays can look like anything, and empowered me to write the kind of story I was interested in seeing – which at the time was a very silly, very heartfelt, very gay play.
What was the inspiration behind the story?
Get Happy came out of a summer in my late 20s when I had the first influx of friends getting married. This was obviously a lovely thing, but I found it all, at times, intensely stressful; I was always single, I felt like I was floating about, and I didn’t really know what the fuck I wanted. I could sort of distance myself from my straight friends getting married, but then a pair of my queer friends got engaged and it sent me into a total tailspin. I was obviously so happy for them – but I just started thinking, am I just destined to be alone forever? Am I missing some integral part of me that allows me to hit those big life moments? Do I want any of those things? The play kind of tumbled out of that.
Do you think gay men find happiness elusive?
Not necessarily, no, but I do think it can take longer for some gay men (and all queer people) to figure out what happiness looks like for them, as our timelines are different from heteronormative ones. We go through a version of self-discovery that straight people don’t, and with that comes an assessment of what will make us happy in a world where we’ve only relatively recently started having a wide selection of role models to look to, and have to largely figure out what happiness is from our community around us. Which is a really beautiful thing, and can lead to unique, exciting, happy lives. It just takes a little teasing out sometimes.
Does the show encourage the audience to evaluate their own happiness or will they be too busy laughing and having a good time?
I hope it does both! The show’s definitely got good times at the forefront of its offer – if people are going to take the trip all the way to a theatre and spend money on a ticket, I think a show should give them a good old laugh. Having said this, I hope what people take away from the show is that sense of thinking about what really makes them happy. With Ke$ha ringing in their ears on the journey home.
Get Happy is your debut play, and it has already won the Carlo Annoni International LGBTQ+ Playwriting Prize. How important has winning this prize been to you?
It was very important. The support of the prize and the team who work there has been huge, and I think they do great work shining a light on international LGBTQ+ playwriting. I think more than anything, though, it made me feel legitimate; like somebody actually thought I could be a writer, that my work had actual worth and meaning. Having said this, I do think there’s an overemphasis on seeing awards as a marker of ultimate talent or skill, and there are countless playwrights out there who create amazing work and routes to finding that feeling of legitimacy.
Writing and performing a solo show must be a very intense and exhausting experience. Are there any tricks to maintaining the momentum over the run?
Yes – don’t sit in the bar after the show all night! I actually I think the biggest trick to maintaining momentum is to try to let yourself have fun on stage in each performance. When you’re doing a run of something you can get quite locked in, and then you just feel like you’re going through the motions. But it’s fun. It’s really fun to do a show! It’s the best bit of the whole process! So I think remembering that keeps it alive, and keeps it special.
Going forward, do you think you’ll spend more time writing or acting?
I’d like to carry on focusing on writing right now; I’ve got a lot of ideas buzzing around that I want to get stuck into.
What projects do you have in the pipeline?
There are a fair few scripts at different stages of development, both for theatre and for screen, that I’m really excited about. It’s really an exercise in plate-spinning. I’d also really like to get a cat, so I’m currently conducting a pretty long-term project to get my boyfriend on side for that one. We’re entering into the final phase.
Get Happy runs from 1 – 12 July 2025 at Omnibus Theatre, 1 Clapham Common Northside, London SW4 0QW, United Kingdom.
