Musician and theatre-maker Eli Yim brings their gig-theatre show The Easy Way Out to Leeds Carriageworks on 18 September, a piece the Liverpool-based artist describes as having come together almost by accident.
Writing in a Leeds Inspired blog post, Yim explains that the songs came first, written while studying songwriting at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, long before there was any plan to build a show around them. It was a tutor who first pointed out that many of Yim’s strongest songs — among them tracks about a best friend from their school years, about coming out as nonbinary, and about phone calls home to their Korean mother — were deeply autobiographical, planting the idea of a gig-theatre piece built from Yim’s own life.
Mental health crisis
That idea only became concrete after Yim went through a serious mental health crisis in their final year of study. Soon after being discharged from hospital, Yim says they knew exactly what the show needed to be about, and the rest of the project came together from there — beginning as a performance with Yim’s four-piece band for a third-year project at LIPA, before Yim reworked it into a solo show for the Buxton Fringe in 2025.
This year’s run, including a performance at last June’s Queer Words Festival, has evolved further still into a hybrid format: Yim remains the only performer on stage, now joined by live voiceover from former drummer Xander Castle-Bradley, alongside a starring turn from Yim’s teddy bear, Sunny.
Yim says the show is less about dwelling on the pain that shaped it and more about what can come afterwards, hoping audiences who’ve been through something similar might find their own moment of recognition, or comfort, in it.
The Easy Way Out plays at Leeds Carriageworks on 18 September; tickets and further details are available online.
