OverVIEW
Set in a music club, teetering on the edge of belonging, immersive theatre and music production, Dido's Bar, premiered in London’s historic Royal Docks in September 2022 before touring Manchester, Leicester, Portsmouth, and Oxford.
“Go and experience this moving, sensitively written, expertly directed and brilliantly-acted, epically relevant story whilst you can”
Dido’s Bar is an epic retelling of Virgil’s Aeneid, created and performed by a multilingual international ensemble of actor-musicians, bringing to life the classic myth of migration, love, and assimilation, through the eyes of refugees today. Nightly, divine bar managers, Juno and Venus, welcome world-class artists onto their stage, and around their performances, the drama unfolds.
The work is inspired by director Josephine Burton’s encounter with Kurdish Iranian refugee and now Finnish resident, composer Marouf Majidi and is written by Hattie Naylor.
BLOG POSTs
Creatives
Conceived and Directed by Josephine Burton
Written by Hattie Naylor
Composed by Marouf Majidi with additional composition by Riku Kantola
Set and Costume Design by Bryan Woltjen
Music and Sound arranged and designed by Riku Kantola
Music Direction by Ben Sutcliffe
Movement Direction by Ayse Tashkiran
Lighting Design by Peter Small
Produced by Charlie Bunker
CAST
Gemma Barnett as Matina
Priscille Grace as Venus
Tuukka Leppänen as Turnus
Lola May as Dido
Lahcen Razzougui as Aeneas
Georgina White as Juno
House Band
Simon Edwards on bass
Marouf Majidi on strings
Ben Sutcliffe on keyboard
Phillip Williams on drums
Full cast and crew list
Supporters
Lead Production Supporters
Rebecca Bennett
Tony Hales
David Isaacs
Stuart & Ellen Lyons
Emma Sharp
Caleb Wright
Production Supporters
Feras Al-Chalabi
Esther and Al Bannister
Helen Burrows
Kate Beswick
Julian and Ann Dawes
Joanne Edelman and Tony Klug
Deborah Hinton
Henry King
Alan Leibowitz
David Richardson
Anne Sebba
Ruth Walton
Plus the many other generous individuals who were part of our Dido's Bar Individual Giving Circle.
PODCASTS
Videos
Dido’s Bar is produced by Dash Arts with imPOSSIBLE Producing.
In 2022, Dido's Bar was co-produced with the Royal Docks Team, OCM (Oxford Contemporary Music), and Journeys Festival International and co-commissioned by OCM, with additional support from Arts Council England, Backstage Trust, The Foyle Foundation, Projekt, Cockayne – Grants for the Arts, The London Community Foundation, Genesis Foundation, Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland, The Marchus Trust, TINFO – Theatre Info Finland, Austin and Hope Pilkington, Royal Victoria Hall Foundation, The Leche Trust and individual donors.
