These Violent Delights Synopsis

One Night Only Includes recorded Q & A

Scottish Ballet's captivating reimagining of the Shakespeare classic features exceptional choreography, stunning costumes, and seamless cinematography to deliver a distinctive ballet experience.


Juliet wakes in The Apothecary, traces of death surrounding them: daggers, spilt poison, Romeo’s body.

Rewind.

Dragged into a fevered hallucination, Juliet slips between memory and nightmare as shadowy figures pull them back through the moments that led here.

They drift between the mirrored dining rooms of the Capulets and Montagues – two families divided by pride and ambition. At the Capulet table, Paris is paraded as a suitor; Juliet refuses the future mapped out for them. At the Montague feast, they are unseen – more ghost than guest. The worlds fracture and reform. Romeo, restless within his family’s restraint, retreats into his journal until Benvolio and his boyfriend Mercutio shatter his solitude, luring him towards a night of abandon.

Urged by Nurse to escape expectation, Juliet seeks refuge at The Apothecary, a queer club reclaimed from an abandoned building and presided over by the drag Sisters Laurence and Giovanna. Beneath neon light and pulsing music, Romeo arrives. Across a haze of glitter and sweat, their eyes meet. The connection is immediate, intoxicating. In a flamboyant ritual before the crowd, their love is sanctified.

Outside, Tybalt’s resentment curdles. A confrontation erupts; Mercutio is wounded and, in the chaos, Romeo sends Tybalt to his death. Reeling, Juliet agrees to appease their parents by courting Paris while secretly planning to flee.

Back at The Apothecary, Juliet takes a pill to escape reality and sends a defiant message, mistaken for a suicide note. Believing Juliet dead, Romeo rushes to them with poison in hand.

We end where we began.