Edinburgh film festival A taut, dreamlike reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy strips away romance in favour of dread, creating an engrossing and fiercely physical dance film
These Violent Delights review – Scottish Ballet’s feverish Romeo and Juliet is bold and unsettling
Edinburgh film festival A taut, dreamlike reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy strips away romance in favour of dread, creating an engrossing and fiercely physical dance film Scottish Ballet, under the direction of...
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Edinburgh film festival A taut, dreamlike reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy strips away romance in favour of dread, creating an engrossing and fiercely physical dance film Scottish Ballet, under the direction of Christopher Hampson and Oscar Sansom, gives us an engrossing dance riff on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The title alludes to Friar Lawrence...
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- Edinburgh film festival A taut, dreamlike reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy strips away romance in favour of dread, creating an engrossing and fiercely physical dance film Scottish...
- The title alludes to Friar Lawrence saying, at the couple’s secret wedding ceremony, that “these violent delights have violent ends”, that their passion will consume itself in the act of...
- The ballet is fierce, athletic, knotty and sensual; it is not a filmed event beneath a proscenium arch but a film that inhabits its own theatrical space.
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This story is part of the Dance coverage. The original reporting source identified by the page is The Guardian. Publication date: August 14, 2026 at 11:55.
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Scottish Ballet, under the direction of Christopher Hampson and Oscar Sansom, gives us an engrossing dance riff on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The title alludes to Friar Lawrence saying, at the couple’s secret wedding ceremony, that “these violent delights have violent ends”, that their passion will consume itself in the act of marriage – which is true, but not in the way he thinks.
The ballet is fierce, athletic, knotty and sensual; it is not a filmed event beneath a proscenium arch but a film that inhabits its own theatrical space. The whole event is a radically impressionistic compression of the play’s action, bringing it down to just 70 minutes, an extended nightmarish dream sequence with a repeated and disturbing scene of Juliet being dragged across the grass by an unseen force. This version chucks out, among other things, the balcony scene, and it interestingly modifies the ending, suggesting that the double-suicide might not be a trick that goes wrong but an anguished mutual gesture of despair.
Source: The Guardian
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