Dido’s Bar: Immersive Theatre & Music Production

Regular Production
23 September – 15 October 2022 Tuesday – Saturday at 7.30pm
Saturday Matinees – 1 & 8 October at 2pm


School specific
Friday 14 October 2022
Unit F, The Factory, Factory Rd, Royal Docks, London E16 2HB
Doors at 11:45
Show Starts 12:00


Dido’s Bar is a story of migration, love and assimilation, a 21st century retelling of Virgil’s Aeneid through the eyes of refugees today.


In this production, goddesses Juno and Venus are bar owners and managers, running a series of bars across town. Dido is the star singer of their bar on the edge of town, a place for those seeking their fortunes in a new land. Aeneas, seeking sanctuary, walks into her bar and is immediately caught up in the musical magic of her world. Although Dido and Aeneas fall in love, Venus has bigger plans for Aeneas. Aeneas needs to take centre stage at their other, more popular establishment, Latinus Bar. When Aeneas moves there, he encounters Turnus and Matina (a newly created role for our show, a merging of Virgil’s Amata and Lavinia). Turnus who is a comfortably established local musician clashes musically with the refugee, Aeneas and his ‘new’ ideas. This is where conflict arises.


The work is inspired by Director Josephine’s encounter with Kurdish Iranian refugee and now Finnish resident Composer, Marouf Majidi. Josephine, who studied classics at Oxford, found similarities between Virgil’s 1st century AD poem and Marouf’s experience as a refugee. They, together with award-winning playwright Hattie Naylor, who coincidentally once adapted BBC Radio 3’s adaptation of The Aeneid, developed this production.

Schools Workshops and Discussions

This event is aimed at GCSE to ALevel Students, 14+

Josephine will be available for Q&A or discussions with you and your students before and/or after the show. Potential discussions could be around studying and retelling ancient texts on how to make them accessible to contemporary audiences. This could focus specifically on exploring the role and agency of women in Virgil’s original story and within our contemporary version, and on the way that Dido’s Bar depicts Virgil’s original epic battles in a modern context.


If there are particular angles or themes that you would like to take your students in on their studies using the play, please let us know in advance.

If you are interested in bringing your students to see the production please contact

More information

  • Tickets £7.50 for under 25
  • The production is 2.5 hours long with a 15 minutes interval.
  • Students will be seated 4 to a table facing a bar.
  • The production is set in an old sugar warehouse. Unit F, The Factory, Factory Rd, Royal Docks, London E16 2HB.
  • There is a 3 – 5 minutes walk from the gate to the space itself
  • Nearest station is London City Airport DLR station