Rehearsals have begun for Dido’s Bar, a new immersive theatre and music production opening at The Factory, a creative facility in London’s historic Royal Docks on 23 September before touring to Manchester, Leicester, Portsmouth, and Oxford.
Set in a music club, teetering on the edge of belonging, Dido’s Bar is an epic retelling of Virgil’s Aeneid, created and performed by a multilingual international ensemble of actor-musicians. Full of original songs, Dido’s Bar brings 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 refugees including composer Marouf Majidi, now resident in Finland, and is written by award-winning playwright Hattie Naylor.
Part of Royal Docks Originals, a programme of new work made in the Royal Docks. Dido’s Bar takes place in a disused warehouse, at The Factory, adjacent to Tate and Lyle’s famous sugar refinery overlooking the Thames. A site of immigration for hundreds of years, the Royal Docks is now home to one of the youngest and most diverse communities in the UK. Dido’s Bar will be staffed by local community members, include nightly guest slots by Newham artists, and be complemented by a community engagement programme.
Created through a series of residences over more than two years, Dido’s Bar has been influenced by the language and backgrounds of its international cast. Marouf Majidi’s own personal story began at the music conservatoire in Tehran before he was forced to leave Iran as a refugee. He was later resettled in Finland where he eventually studied Finnish folk music at the Sibelius Academy. His journey has inspired the character of Aeneas and its musical influences. Other cast members are from Morocco, Madagascar, Germany, Finland, and Eritrea.
Director Josephine Burton, Artistic Director of Dash said: ‘The ancient myth of Aeneas, a refugee from the war-torn East who travels across the Mediterranean to seek sanctuary and build a new home in Europe, is truly a tale for our time. We are bringing it hurtling into the present – setting the drama in a music club on the edge of town, where the heroes of old are now the great music stars of today, with a little jazz and world music thrown in!’.
Dido’s Bar is 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.
