When dance choreographer Ben Duke found himself talking to contestants auditioning for Big Brother, the stories inspired a Place Prize winning show.

He was fascinated by the lengths people would go to in pursuit of fame; how much people were prepared to “give away of themselves” for the spotlight.

“I was amazed by this queue of people who would go into this room and be told to share their most shocking stories.

“People would reveal stuff about their family or love life and if the producers said, ‘No sorry we are not going to take you’, people would go to end of queue again and think of another even more shocking story to persuade these people they were the ones to choose.”

It Needs Horses won what is often called the Turner Prize for dance – though Duke points out shows are made for The Place Prize rather than pre-existing, and each company has to navigate interviews and perform in front of judging panels and a voting audience.

The 20-minute piece was written out in the country near Ringmer. Duke’s studio is in a communal space in the grounds of a shared co-housing project at an old mental hospital near his home.

“It’s funny how these things influence your work. We were making this piece about circus performers and there are these horses in the field next door. At certain points in the day they would go crazy and gallop around. Suddenly this piece became about the lack of horses in the circus performers’ world.”

On first look, it appears Vaudevillian cabaret mixed with silent comedy. But Duke explains the two circus performers have no skill, no material, are unrehearsed – and desperate to entertain.

Initial idea

“We began with this idea, connected to anxiety dreams and these fears, where suddenly you find yourself in a situation where you have no idea what you are supposed to be doing, your costume is missing, but you know you have to entertain.

“Something about that took us towards circus, which is blatant entertainment. Then as that scenario developed, as they got further and further and more desperate and the stakes got higher, it became about the relationship between a man and a woman – about how they need each other and abuse each other.”

To tour the piece, Duke and his co-writer Raquel Meseguer penned Home For Broken Turns which was supposed to be a sequel.

“We sort of got second album syndrome and realised we couldn’t compete with the first piece because it is contained like a short story. It still feels like you can make a connection but there is no clear, explicit link.”

Anyone who knows Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House Of Bernada Alba will see similarities to the set-up: a group of women, all family, are trapped in a house and restricted by each other’s existence.

“It is about where they live, their dreams and their aspirations; how that affects them.

“For me the thing linking the piece was this idea of circuses and glamour and running away to a circus, which is an abstract idea – but where does that image take us?

“What is it to imagine a different life? Is that connected to the limitation: the tighter your confines, the bigger your dreams? It’s about that and their bonds and desire to stay and how their dreams and hopes are pulling them away.”

Home For Broken Turns incorporates a mixture of French and English.

“We were interested in the text providing texture – and hopefully what they are saying and how they are saying it is clear without you needing to speak French. I wanted something that felt like it belonged to a different place, not a literal place.”

Because Duke trained as an actor, his shows always have sense of narrative and character which gives “a handle or lens for seeing the dance”.

“Stories take you forward, they have linear shape. Dance has this sideways movement, it spreads out and moves around. It offers you ways of looking at relationships.”