Romeo & Juliet

William Shakespeare

Everyman & Playhouse production

Everyman Theatre, Liverpool

September 13-October 4, 2025; 2 hrs 30 mins

Alicia Forde as Juliet and Zoe West as Romeo in the Everyman's Romeo & Juliet. All pics: Pamela Raith Photography

What do we want from Romeo & Juliet, a play where we all know what happens and we have mostly all seen before? In other words, in any modern production of Shakespeare, we need the director to ask, before the pencil hits the script, and before any actors enter the room, what's the story here still to tell? And within that story and considering our audience, what matters?

Director Ellie Hurt, a graduate of the Everyman Young Directors course, knows her audience and this city inside out, and certainly gives us a bold answer to that question. What matters here is young people, cycles of violence, maybe love, and certainly personal autonomy. This Romeo & Juliet is a whirlwind of teenage hormones, behaviours and motivations that we might all remember if we try hard enough. It's also a warning to the grown-ups in the room to pay attention without exerting ultimate control; that dictatorships always end in tears, and generational bad blood is a really bad idea. How apt for our world today...

The brilliant cast is pan-northern, and the text abridged with, I would suggest, a gentle trim for a modern audience, making room for a contemporary production that shows as much as it tells. The music (composed by Dom Coyote) is at times ambitious but also stunning, reappropriating the bard against a backdrop of drum and bass party music, and some gorgeous (and really tricky!) a capella harmonies that beautifully underline the key messages: "a rose by any other name" "I defy you, stars"; "fortune's fool". And there are some truly beautiful powerful voices in the mix from these eight actors. Special mention for Elliot Broadfoot, Milo McCarthy and Eithne Browne on the atmospheric vocals.

Perhaps to return a middle-aged audience to the distant memory of the untamed desires of youth, there is a suggestion of a 90s theme, with the music, lighting and layered costumes, and a hint of an homage to the 1996 Baz Luhrmann film many of us will remember. But this Juliet is Scouse and real, her virginal white layered over a red sports top and what might be her school uniform skirt showing through – that’s our Juliet, played defiant, sparky and Scouse by the effervescent and energetic Alicia Ford. In a world where gender is perhaps the least important division we can see, this show is curiously and wonderfully queered, with a chemistry between the leads that lights up the room. While Juliet seethes with teenage frustration between encounters, she still manages five full-on smooches before marriage with her beau - the magnificent Zoe West - despite the best efforts of the kind but daft Nurse (Ebony Feare) and the well-meaning Friar (Browne) to keep them at arms length from each other. There is an undated yet timeless feel to the whole thing: in the Friar’s cell we get an essence of ancient Shamanism in tandem with Catholicism, and indeed her chemistry was not at fault, even if her plan was. We get a tiny bit of updated language in the form of the odd expletive, which serves to punctuate the iambic pentameter with a dash of modern teen. Indeed, a 14 year old who saw it told me she really enjoyed the "modern language and relevance", and my own daughter too is desperate to go.

I should mention the signed, audio-described and "visually enhanced" evenings (details on the link below) for accessibility, including touch tours. The set itself is inspired in its minimalist functionality, with some rather exciting elements - there’s some technically impressive, pathetic fallacy at the end that I’ll leave you to see for yourself.

Yes, there's sex, drugs, house music and tragic violence. Claire Llewellyn deserves an epic mention as intimacy and fight coordinator; the synergy is clear that these things are all elements of the same picture.

On the way home my friend and I discussed our lives as mums of teens, and had to smugly congratulate ourselves that we must have better parenting skills than those on display during the play. Who was even meant to be watching these kids? For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet, and her Romeo.

More info and tickets here