‘Romeo and Juliet’,

Titchfield Festival Theatre,

The Great Barn, Titchfield.

DIRECTOR Daniel Fox should be applauded for his brave attempt to set the world’s best-known love affair squarely in the time of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, but with many of the cast hidden in paramilitary balaclavas, the characters and families became too easily confused, and the range of accents, too few from Ulster itself, on a number of occasions made the dialogue difficult to hear clearly and the plot a struggle to follow. Some unconvincing manipulation of the text, and ill-placed dances did not help the flow of the production.

Ben Pharoah was a personable Romeo and Georgie Melton an attractive Juliet, but both were too casual in the development of their instant affair, lacking energy and passion at the crucial moments, with their dialogue too often on one note, and their body language too laid-back. Nevertheless, Lee Backhouse gave the firebrand Tybalt the required edginess before meeting a particularly gruesome end.

Ed Howson.