English Touring Theatre and its director Stephen Unwin have a real knack of spotting talent on the way up. It was with this company that almost 10 years ago a young Alan Cumming played Hamlet and Alexandra Gilbreath was a fearsomely young Hedda Gabler; in the last few years some of the best of our younger generation of classical actors-Emma Cunniffe, Daniel Evans and Mark Bazeley-have first made their mark with ETT. Now we have two more names to add to the list: Adam Croasdell and Laura Rees who as the lovers Romeo and Juliet make what is often Shakespeare's dullest play seem surprisingly sprightly. There is also a rather good and highly entertaining Jamaican Mercutio from O.T. Fagbenle.
For all its talk of love and passion, the trouble with most Romeo and Juliets is that they are severely anaemic, lacking in genuine tragic intensity. Most directors realise that Shakespeare hadn't quite got his act together when it came to editing and tightening his own work, and that by the time the play drags towards a close half the audience will be silently willing the lovers to die as quickly as possible so they can get to the pub before last orders.
It is not for nothing that it is one of the most likely Shakespeare plays for a director to employ either a concept or a gimmick. Not here. Stephen Unwin's intelligent 1950s period production plays it straight, precise, clear and uncut, and gets away with it because at its heart it has a pair of lovers who are not just romantic ciphers, but real flesh and blood.
These are two highly distinctive performances. Croasdell's Romeo is full of charged poetry, he is like an express train heading for certain catastrophic derailment. He can't keep his arms still; it is as if his hands talk as much as his motor mouth. He is just so full of life and passion, that you really feel it when it is snuffed out. In contrast Rees' Juliet has moments of intense stillness combined with the genuine gawkiness of a 14-year-old in love for the first time. She seems so very, very old and so painfully young at the same time. She doesn't just die; she melts away, and with it melts all reservations about this play.
· Ends Saturday. Box office 01865 305305. Then touring to Glasgow, Blackpool, Warwick, Salford, Cambridge and Brighton. Details englishtouringtheatre.co.uk
