Juliet & Romeo | Q&A with Ben Duke
9 Jul 2026
Ben Duke is Artistic Director and co-founder of Lost Dog, for which he has created the National Dance Award-winning Ruination (co-produced by the Royal Ballet), A Tale of Two Cities, Juliet & Romeo (Lost Dog’s most successful work to date), Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me), and The Place Prize-winning It Needs Horses.
Ben Duke is one of Britain’s finest theatre-makers
The Scotsman
Is this the story of what might have happened had Romeo and Juliet lived?
Yes. When I watch Romeo and Juliet I am always hoping that their timings will be a little different and Juliet will wake up a few moments earlier. I know she never will but I can’t help hoping for it. The idea for this piece came from allowing myself to imagine that alternate version. In this work they’ve been together about 25 years.
Are they happy and how do they feel about each other?
At the point that this piece is set they are in something of a marital crisis. Basically, they love each other and sometimes they wish the other one were dead. The bloom of teenage romance has faded but it haunts them.
Duke’s handling of this material is beautifully assured. His writing is fast, inventive and smart; the interleaving of movement, text and music is expertly paced.
The Guardian on Juliet & Romeo
Comic awkwardness tipping into vulnerable emotion is a hallmark of Ben Duke’s work.
The Independent on Juliet & Romeo
What inspired you to make it?
A feeling that we aren’t that honest about relationships in our culture and that too many stories focus on how relationships start rather than how they continue.
Had you seen stage/film versions of the original before you made your piece?
I have seen several versions. Baz Luhrmann’s film version came out at a time when I was particularly impressionable and is lodged in my memory.
With a degree in English Literature and training in acting and dance, he has created his own hybrid stage scene to meld all three, but one senses his heart lies in the writing, very engaging in its natural cadences, rhythms and asides, his timing, hesitations and pace impressive.
British Theatre Guide
Describe their characters.
Romeo is in the middle of a mid-life crisis and so his character is trying to re-shape itself. He is trying to let go of the passionate, over the top teenager he was and become a Man. But he doesn’t have any clear idea what that Man should look like so he is in limbo. Juliet is very attached to the extraordinary teenager she was and is finding the ordinariness of her current life a struggle.
Will the audience like them?
At times – if you had them round for dinner you would probably find them a little self-obsessed.
And what do you hope audiences will take away with them after seeing the work?
A sense of realistic optimism about the state of their relationships – past, present or future.
Interview with Ben Duke, Feb 2018
