January 14, 2026

Danish Sheikh: “The law was my great love story”

Activist-lawyer and playwright Danish Sheikh on his tumultuous love affair with the law inspiring his Midsumma performance lecture ‘Much to do with Law, but more to do with Love’

Danish Sheikh midsumma Much to do with Love but more to do with Law

Reading Time: 4 minutes

It was ‘utter and complete heartbreak’ that drew activist-lawyer Danish Sheikh to theatre.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of India ruled against repealing Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalising ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’, a law used primarily to police homosexuality and same sex intercourse.

At the time the news dropped, ironically, Sheikh was preparing for a constitutional law exam at the University of Michigan: “[It was] a moment of complete shock and horror – this institution that I cared for so much, that I’d spent so much of my life working with, was just saying ‘sorry, we don’t have any space for you.’’

“It was just too much to process, and theatre seemed to be one way in which all these thoughts could exist and be shared with the larger public.”

When Section 377 was finally rescinded in 2018, Sheikh once again found in theatre a forum to unpack the cautious optimism and uncertainty he and others felt.

“I had such a deep psychic [feeling] of what it meant to live as a criminal that just being told one day I wasn’t a criminal didn’t immediately undo the impact. It would take a lot of therapy, a lot of just living as free to believe that I was free,” he says.

Contempt, and Pride, the two plays borne out of these inflection points and which had a staged reading as part of Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2024 Cybec Electric program, blend courtroom proceedings with personal testimonials, juxtaposing the absolute rhetoric of law with its messy, lived reality.

Danish Sheikh Section 377 Supreme Court of India — “I realised that ‘whoever has carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ is just a way to refer to sex that does not have the possibility of procreation and is not between people of opposite sexes… [from] a process of exclusion, [I realised] that it was talking about me,” Danish Sheikh recalls.

Danish Sheikh sees these two worlds as less oppositional: “One of the stories that the law can try to fool us with is that it is reasonable and rational. But it’s often led with a lot of common prejudice, everyday biases.”

“Through taking those things that happen in the rarefied area of the courtroom and bringing them outside the courtroom for public scrutiny, we realise how much of the human sits within the superhuman figure of the judge or the lawyer.”

Sheikh’s latest work for the 2026 Midsumma festival, Much to do with Law, but More to do with Love, pushes this notion further, exploring his own entanglement within an institution which once regarded him an ‘unapprehended felon’.

Structured as a performance lecture, Much to do with Law… turns to the confessional pop sensibilities of ‘the world’s most celebrated philosopher of heartbreak’, Taylor Swift, positioning the law as less of a monolith and more a toxic lover.

“There’s a bit in the show where I talk about how the affidavit is a bridge, in the sense that it bridges the law as it is written and the law as it is lived,” Sheikh explains. “Who’s really good at writing bridges? Taylor Swift.”

“In the bridge of Love Story, [Taylor Swift] takes us into this imagined other reality – [“Marry me Juliet…I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress.”] – I like to use it as an example of what a good affidavit can do. It can take us from one reality, which is the law that exists right now, and write us into another reality, a different kind of legal imagination.”

Taylor Swift heartbreak Danish Sheikh — “[Taylor’s] music, whether you like it or you hate it, you probably know it, so it’s a really helpful cultural touchstone to think from,” says Danish Sheikh

Though suffering deep heartbreak at the hands of the law, Sheikh remains enamoured by its potential to deliver a better future.

“When I first encountered the law in law school… discovering that what I am is essentially an unapprehended felon, it didn’t feel very enchanting, it felt extremely alienating and quite unfamiliar,” he recalls.

“There’s a hope held by the Constitution of India…a document drafted to imagine an India unshackled from the repression of the colonial era – transformative, radical imagination ripples through the pages of the Constitution.”

“For a lot of the activists and lawyers I was working with, there was this great sense of faith and hope that they had in that document. That’s something I inherited right after law school.”

Danish Sheikh hopes Much to do with Law… will inspire others to see the tangibility of the institution that he loves.

“Whether you love it or hate it, the law exists; it’s incredibly powerful, all-encompassing,” he says. “One of the things that happens when you try to love the law is that you find creative ways of working with it and navigating it and living with it.”

“Ultimately I want people to form a relation of possibility and agency with the law as opposed to a relation of fear and status.”

Much to do with law, but more to do with Love is part of the Midsumma Festival and runs from Wednesday 4 February – Saturday 7 February 2026 at Gasworks Arts Park.