Alexis Gregory, who opened his new play FutureQueer at the King’s Head Theatre last week [Matt Spike]

IT’S 2071 and everyone in the world is queer.

This is the so-called “queertopia” as imagined by playwright Alexis Gregory, who opened his new play FutureQueer at the King’s Head Theatre last week.

It imagines a world where Starbucks owns Pride and there’s a statue to George Michael on Hampstead Heath.

“Some people are saying they find it quite dystopian,” said Mr Gregory. The play focuses on the commodifi­cation of queerness, including drag artists, and imagines a world where everyone has a drag avatar in their home, but also explores the idea that the many colossal talents lost to AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s could be brought back to life.

“We have seen these incredible advances for the LGBT community over the last couple of decades, but it has felt like we’ve been regressing lately,” he added, accusing Rishi Sunak of using “very anti-trans rhetoric” and creating division amongst the queer community.

“I keep seeing things and thinking, wow, are we really back there? So we have this whole idea of life’s getting better for minorities, especially queer people, but what happens as right-wing governments come to power across Europe?”

He warned a backlash could get worse, even resulting in Shakespeare plays – famously full of “queer” characters and gender-questioning scenes – being removed from school syllabuses. “I push the idea that if we have this resentment bubble thing now, where will it be in three years? Six years? Nine years? I really want the audience to think about that. I think we need to wake up.”

But he’s at pains to say it’s not all gloom. Indeed, he has coined a new genre: Hardcamp. “It’s hard-hitting meets high camp,” he laughs.

“It’s a lot of fun, and the show keeps changing. One minute I’m playing an unborn queer baby, and the next minute, I’m doing this really silly tongue in cheek section about voguing and lip syncing being categories in the Olympics.”