Rosie Kay: It was August last year and I was only about 10 days away from the premiere of a big, contemporary, Birmingham-based version of Romeo and Juliet. I had been working on it for about five years on and off. And I had been working with a very young cast of dancers for about a year. There was a funny vibe in the studio, so I wanted to do something to show them that I cared. I invited the young dancers over to my home. I think management also said this was a good idea, because at the time it was seen as less of a Covid risk than going out clubbing in Birmingham. There was a lot at stake if I lost a Romeo or a Juliet at that point.

So, I invited them to my house, I showed them around, they met my son and I cooked lots of different meals for their different dietary needs. At first it was all very nice, as you would expect with a bunch of luvvies. They were in my home, drinking my alcohol and helping themselves to my wine collection. I thought I was with people who I could speak to. Some of the dancers there were very young, but I’d known them for quite a long time.

Then, very late in the night – about 1.30am or 2am – they asked me what my next show was. I said I was just about to put out audition notices for the main role of Orlando. I was going to do an adaptation of this incredible, witty Virginia Woolf novel, where the eponymous hero starts off as a male aristocrat and halfway through he transforms into a woman. So we began to talk about who could, should or must play that role. I was pretty easy – I felt like it just needed to be someone extraordinary. But then it became a discussion around sex and gender and it got quite heated quite quickly. I felt like I was the only one who was actually standing up for women, considering the repercussions of these ideas. And the more I tried to explain why I thought these ideas could be a danger to women’s rights and to children, the worse it got. I was genuinely shocked at how far down the ideological road they had gone.

At first, I thought it would all blow over. But then my board and my management got involved. It just got worse and worse and worse.