What was he thinking?

In Death in Venice - both the original 1912 novella by Thomas Mann and the 1971 film by Luchino Visconti - writer Gustav von Aschenbach becomes obsessed with a beautiful Polish youth who is staying at the same hotel. Although the two never speak, the boy Tadzio is clearly aware of the older man's attention and a silent relationship grows between them that lasts until the writer's final day on the Lido beach.

Both book and film focus on Aschenbach while Tadzio remains a cypher. For some he is the abstract symbol of beauty, for others the focus of sexual desire; for many he is a combination of the two. Each of us creates his own Tadzio, projecting our own thoughts and desires on to the youth we want or the youth we want to be.

Yet if Aschenbach is real to us, then so must Tadzio be. A teenager on the verge of manhood, a boy surrounded by women (sisters, mother and governess), a wealthy youth with the world at his fingertips. What went through his mind that summer when he realised a man old enough to be his father was watching him? Did he welcome or fear Aschenbach's gaze?

Decades later, Tadzio opens his heart in a powerful and emotional monologue that reveals the impact of that fateful summer in Venice.

Featuring former TV presenter, turned actor, Christopher Peacock, written by award-winning playwright Martin Foreman, Tadzio Speaks premieres at the Lord Stanley Theatre in Camden, London, as part of the annual Solo Festival in July 2013. Book tickets here.