Romeo & Juliet - The Cornishman

It will be something close to a miracle if Cornwall's own Miracle Theatre Company again gets such good weather, great setting and grand audience, at any of the 50 or so venues on the summer tour of its Romeo And Juliet as it did last Sunday at Trereife.

Adapted from the Bard's celebrated tragic love story and directed by Bill Scott, who was faced at Trereife with a director's nightmare of having to cover for an actor - in this case Penwith-based Steve Jacobs - unable to appear and, in the event, perfromed nobly as Old Capulet and Father Laurence, it is perhaps the most "straightforward" not only of the seven Shakespearean plays the company has now staged, but of all its productions to date. Should this disappoint the many who love its particular brand of comedy, I hasten to add that, as "straight" as it is, there are treasured moments, a nod, a wink or gesture, when its irresistible sense of humour puts its head above the parapet, or rather balcony, and gives rise to laughter.

Set in the 1930s, if the family trees and photographs as presented in the programme of the Capulets and Montagus can be accepted as being anywhere near accurate, helped along with an excellent period musical soundtrack, performed on a blood-red stage, designed and constructed by Alan Munden and an indication of the violence that is to follow, and adapted to run for just under two hours, it remains remarkably true to the original and shouldn't cause even the most pure of purists any trouble.

Having had to endure "the good, the bad and the ugly, the long, the short and the tall" playing them throughout the years, I could have kissed both Romeo (Wesley Griffith) and Juliet (Catherine Lake) for behaving like teenagers in love, kissing as if they meant it and performing with passion. They received tremendous back-up from Rebecca Hulbert, Ben Dyson, Jason Squibb, and the indefatigable Bill Scott, who cross dress at speed, whip in and out of character, and somehow control their undoubted abilities and possibly secret desires to turn tragedy into comedy, to give us instead a Romeo And Juliet that is, indeed, one "to die for".

Frank Ruhrmund