Juliet and her Romeo

In an adaptation of Shakespeare's play opening at the Bristol Old Vic on 10 March Sian Phillips (aged 76) plays Juliet, and Michael Byrne (66) is Romeo, but they are playing characters in their 80's.
"There's no reason why falling in love at the age of 80 should be any different from falling in love at the age of 15" the director Tom Morris said in an interview with Bryan Appleyard of The Sunday Times.
The play needed very little adaptation, and with the senior citizen lovers it is their children who get in the way, not parents.
Other productions featuring the subject of ageing or the old are Kontakthof at the Barbican with dancers over the age of 65, a play at the National Theatre - "Really old, Like Forty five", artist Louise Bourgeois exhibiting her work around the world at 98, and Judi Dench (75) playing Titania in a new Peter Hall (he's 80) production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
In his excellent article Bryan Appleyard bemoans the fact that the world at large and the baby boomer generation in particular are obsessed with staying young. He concludes by suggesting that it is "Time to grow up."

Heather Hosking