MIXED race history teacher Layla McKinnon is days away from marrying Andy McKinnon.

Already having the same surname as her fiancé used to be just a funny coincidence but now it threatens to drive them apart.

Piecing together her family tree, she tries to hold onto her best friend and her husband-to-be and find out who she is and where she fits in.

Dominoes, written and performed by Phoebe McIntosh, is a bold new solo show which asks if the difficulties of the past will always pose a threat to the future and if discovering your identity means picking a side?

Phoebe says she always wanted to write a solo show. “I began writing short monologues and bits and pieces here and there about a few personal experiences – growing up, family, getting married – but they were all quite disparate and didn’t have a through line.

“But when I turned up the gas on getting something written, a couple of different things sparked the narrative of the play as it is now. One was the fact that my in-laws already had the same surname before they got married! I always thought there was something curious about that and how small the chances of two unrelated people with the same name meeting and falling for each other were.”

Phoebe said she hopes to give audiences lots of food for thought about the issues of identity. “The other themes of race, friendship, family, loyalty, will hopefully have them thinking, ‘What would I do in this situation?’ and should our lives today be informed so heavily by the past?

“There’s a coming-of-age feeling to the play too so I’m hoping that, even if people can’t relate to Layla’s experiences directly, the sense of reaching a milestone in your life, like a wedding, might be something people can appreciate and empathise with. I also hope it’ll encourage them to find out who they are, perhaps look into their own family trees and get bitten by then genealogy bug like I have!”

*Dominoes is at Lighthouse, Poole from March 16 to March 17 at 8pm.