Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare at The George was back in full production mode for 2022 with an excellent staging of Romeo and Juliet the most famous love story of all time.  Everybody knows it and it has of course been performed countless thousands of times over the last 400+ years. So what to do with it to make it fresh for your audience? Director Steph Hamer knew the answer.  In her programme note Steph says she took her inspiration from the original West Side Story film thus deciding to set her production in the Rock ’n’ Roll era with Musical Director Roy Bellass composing some good 1950s style music and Choreographer Katy Palmer adding flair to both the main dance and the hand jive.

The George Hotel’s Jacobean courtyard was transformed to a street in Verona designed by Perry Incledon-Webber with a splendid backdrop by Rob Barton. The modern(ish) treatment worked well with the costuming helping to give the production the desired feel. Colour co-ordination helped distinguish the Capulet and Montague houses. The lighting from Max Richardson was good and very atmospheric as the evening drew in. Sound effects (Martin Avery) although few, were good too.  

The opening of Romeo and Juliet has a fight scene between the rival gangs of Capulets and Montagues. This grabbed your immediate attention as the entire cast poured onto the stage to a mass ‘bundle,’ which was fierce and full of action, and really drew the audience in from the start, very well staged and acted. In fact, all the fight scenes were very evocative and believable.

The pairing of Jordan White as Romeo and Heather Bambridge as Juliet was first rate — they looked good together, and interacted well.  They carried the action with conviction showing obvious empathy between them.  Two excellent charactiserations. 

Mark Hebert and Josephine Hussey were Lord and Lady Montague, they contrasted well with the more stately Capulet’s played by Richard Socket and Paula Incledon-Webber. Strong performances from Richard who made a very dominating and at times aggressive father and I particularly liked Paula’s demeanour throughout — she had the hauteur of a Lady, with slightly softer feeling of a mother towards her daughter.

Lynne Livingstone played the role of the garrulous Nurse superbly. Her interaction with and affection for Juliet came over strongly. She dominated every scene she was in and almost made Jim Carter’s famous remark in Tom Stoppard’s film script for Shakespeare in Love come true, when asked for a plot synopsis of Romeo and Juliet he replied ‘Well, it’s about this nurse…’  

A real gem of a performance came from Rosemary Eason as Abbess Julienne. Rosemary is the consummate actress and she imbued the Abbess with loving sympathy and understanding. A fine performance.

I thought that all the various Montague and Capulet relations did a great job.  Particularly impressive was Georgie Bickerdike as a wonderfully feisty Benvolia; Martin Fearon was very fiery as Tybalt; Ryan Coetsee gave us a very exuberant Mercutio and Dean Laccohee found his inner “Teddy Boy” as County Paris whilst Perry Incledon-Webber gave a real feel of power as the Chief of Police of Verona.   The rest of the supporting cast were equally committed with other smaller parts within the play undertaken by members of the company, often doubling up as servants etc, I particularly liked Ron Meadows as Peter (Capulet Staff) who brought humour to his role without saying much at all. 

Overall I think Steph Hamer successfully fulfilled her vision with some aplomb. It was very long, as is most Shakespeare, but it kept the interest of the audience, I didn’t feel the production dragged. Congratulations to all involved for providing a very enjoyable evening of a quality and standard one automatically expects from SATG. 

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