Jamie Hale and the disabled-led company CRIPtic Arts stage Romeo and Juliet in The Pit at the Barbican from Thursday 13 to Saturday 15 May 2027, with every performance BSL-interpreted, captioned, audio-described and relaxed.
Juliet is bored. That is where Jamie Hale and CRIPtic Arts start their Romeo and Juliet, which runs in The Pit at the Barbican from Thursday 13 to Saturday 15 May 2027.
This Juliet is a disabled woman who uses a ventilator to breathe, and her parents have concluded there is no life for her beyond the walls of the house. They call it protection. She can feel the years going past outside it, and that is the tragedy the production is interested in — not the poison, the boredom.
Then Romeo turns up, disabled and independent and entirely comfortable with both. In a world built to manage them, going out together becomes an act of defiance, and a play that usually runs on the threat of death runs here on the appetite for living. The company's question is what the love story does when the lovers already know they are here for a good time rather than a long one.
Breath is the organising idea, worked through an abridged version of Shakespeare's text. That is not only a staging choice: the production is supported by the Wellcome Trust and sits inside Cripping Breath, a research project led by Sheffield University.
The access provision is the point rather than an afterthought. Every performance is BSL-interpreted, captioned, audio-described and relaxed. Wheelchair spaces are reserved by email with the Barbican rather than online. A free post-show talk follows the performance on Friday 14 May, open to anyone with a ticket for that day.
It runs 2 hours 30 minutes including a 20-minute interval and is guided at 12+. Standard tickets start at £21.50; Young Barbican tickets, for 16- to 29-year-olds, are £10; access tickets are £11.50 with a free essential companion seat where one is needed.
The Barbican presents. It is the last of the nine events in the Barbican's spring 2027 theatre and dance season, two months after the rest of the programme has finished.
