Here’s one from the RSC. Erica Whyman’s production is young, vibrant and focussed on knife crime. Whyman’s revival makes you feel something is genuinely at stake: young people’s lives. It gives it real urgency. At its best this is lethally sharp, particularly in its exploration of identity. It also boasts a killer performance from Charlotte Josephine’s as Mercutio , a young woman testing herself and who she can be amidst a posse of young men. Josephine’s performance has a thrilling directness, and she owns the language utilising her natural working-class London accent to brilliant effect.
What if your first true love was someone you’d been told to hate? Ripped apart by the bitter divisions of their parents, two young people will risk everything to be together. This contemporary production played in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Barbican in London, and on a 2019 national tour. The show featured Bally Gill and Karen Fishwick in the title roles, and used young people from the different regions visited to perform as the Chorus alongside the professional cast.