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
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
Bertie Taylor-Smith (Actor)
Bertie Taylor-Smith is a London-based actor known for his work in Trying (2020), Tributary (2020) and Line of Sight (2023). He has built a career across stage and screen, bringing a sharp, contemporary sensibility to character-driven drama, and continues to work between television and independent theatre projects based in the UK.
Pedro Leandro (Actor)
Born in Belgium to a Spanish mother and a Portuguese father, Pedro Leandro trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating in 2018. Fluent in five languages — English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian — he has worked extensively across stage and screen, appearing in Wonder Woman 1984 (HBO Max, playing a young Pedro Pascal), Domina (Sky Atlantic), The Liberator (Netflix) and The Strangers trilogy (Lionsgate). On stage, his credits include Julius Caesar with the Royal Shakespeare Company and A View from the Bridge at the York Theatre Royal.
Pau Coya (Playwright)
Pau Coya (Palma, 1990) is a Mallorcan playwright whose work is defined by a critical, committed engagement with LGBTQIA+ realities and dissident identities. He won the Torneig de Dramatúrgia de les Illes Balears in 2023 with Pols de diamant — the text on which this production is based, inspired by a real case that took place in Madrid in 2021 — which went on to win Best Proximity Show at the Premis Teatre Barcelona. His other works include Cavallet de mar (o el peix invisible) and El nom volgut. In 2025 he was selected as one of the resident playwrights of Spain's Centro Dramático Nacional.
Performance in English.
Check the Festival's website to know about our other events:
https://www.romancerobooks-store.co.uk/vi-lfqsc-fcqel-2026