EDWARD II Will Tour Following Leeds Premiere

Carlos Pons Guerra is one of the UK's leading voices in contemporary queer dance. This autumn, he turns his distinctive theatrical and choreographic eye to Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, transporting his narrative to the only place scarier than the medieval court of England - high school.

Marlowe's 1592 play tells the true story of the King of England who fell in love with his male court favourite, Piers Gaveston. Their love led to a civil war and a chase across England before they met their tragic end.

Pons Guerra's high school fever dream interpretation tells the story of the King of the Class, the boy he loves and the war that tears the playground apart. Hormone-fuelled, spectacularly camp and aggressively poignant, his Edward II explores the pain and joys of forbidden love - and the struggle and endurance of queer people across history.

The work is set to an original score that glitches from 90s video arcade to medieval electronics by Pons Guerra's regular collaborator, Spanish MAX Award Winner, Luis Miguel Cobo. Time-warping costume designs and set design are by April Dalton. Lighting is by Barnaby Booth.

The piece is danced, lesson to lesson, by a cast of five international dancers: Will English (Club Guy and Roni) as Edward II; Mariano Zamora (Studio Wayne McGregor and Ballet Hispanico of New York) as Piers Gaveston; Tahlia Russell (Lewis Major Projects) as Edward's wife, Queen Isabella; Ruby Portus (former Sadler's Wells Young Associate) as Mortimer Junior, Isabella's lover; and Sebastien Kapps (Matthew Bourne's New Adventures) as Lightborne (Edward's assassin).

Edward II was rarely performed in England until the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1960s. Most historians and academics had until then ignored the play, in part because of how it portrays a queer monarch, and the relationship between Edward and Gaveston was largely described as a close friendship. Pons Guerra's Edward II is only the second dance adaptation following David Bintley's version for Stuttgart Ballet in 1995 which then entered the repertoire of Birmingham Royal Ballet. It is also only the second dance adaptation of any of Marlowe's works.

Pons Guerra's Edward II has come out of his PhD at the University of Leeds, provisionally entitled 'We Found Love in a Hopeless Place' Reparative Reading, Queer Dance, and Christopher Marlowe's Edward II'. World experts on Marlowe and the Renaissance from the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York have worked as consultants on the show.

Pons Guerra says: “I have been living with Edward and Marlowe for over four years now and in that time I've got very close to both of them. Edward, who was the first recorded gay king of England, has an incredibly tragic story. And Marlowe, 'the bad boy' of the Renaissance, tells it beautifully. Rather than dwell on the horror of the story, my adaptation focuses on the deep, intense and timeless love between the two male protagonists. I'm offering new queer lights with which to view the gay king of England and invest Marlowe's text with love, camp and hope.”

Tour Dates

Friday 30 & Saturday 31 October
Stanley & Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds
2 St Cecilia St, Leeds LS2 7PA
Box office: 0113 220 8008 / https://northernballet.com/theatre/2026/edward-ii

Tuesday 17 November
Drama Studio, Sheffield
Shearwood Rd, Broomhall, Sheffield S10 2TD
Box office: 0114 222 8888 / https://performancevenues.group.shef.ac.uk/our-events/edward-ii/

Friday 15 January
Heywood Civic, Rochdale
LCpl Stephen Shaw MC Way, Heywood, Greater Manchester OL10 1LW
Box office: 0300 303 8633 / https://heywoodcivic.co.uk/event/edward-ii/

Thursday 28 January
Barnsley Civic
46 Eldon St, Barnsley S70 2JL
Box office: 01226 327000 / https://barnsleycivic.co.uk/whats-on/

Tuesday 2 & Wednesday 3 March
Lowry, Salford
Pier 8, The Quays, Salford M50 3AZ
Box office: 0161 876 2000 / https://www.thelowry.com/whats-on