It is a brave director who offers an audience a modern-dress Romeo and Juliet on a nearly bare stage, but since he transformed Bolton into an essential theatre-going destination, David Thacker has often proved his courage. This show certainly goes places fast in the opening scenes, which are full of restless energy. Flick-knives and baseball bats, jeans and trainers make it feel breathlessly contemporary. The fights are thrilling; the lighting good, too.
David Ricardo-Pearce and Jade Anouka are a striking pair of lovers. His Romeo is all self-conscious teenage introspection. He runs his hands through his hair; if there were a mirror, he would be glancing in it. But there is something more unsettling, too: a barely suppressed violence, even in his play-fighting with his friends. It is a character flaw that proves fatal and feeds into a reading of the play where the men are overfull of testosterone, ever ready with the blade or killer deal. Judging by the tense, lonely Lady Capulet's reliance on alcohol, the damage extends to the marriage bed.
Anouka's Juliet is a breath of fresh air. She sometimes lacks lyricism, but more than compensates with a vivid immediacy, speaking the words as if she has just minted them. So why does the production not quite come off?
For one thing, the bare setting is unforgiving, sometimes making you feel as if you are still in the rehearsal room. And the social milieu remains unsatisfactorily undefined: who are these people who have such odd family parties in the 21st century? A lack of cuts and a loss of energy cause the second half to drag. It is a well-spoken revival, but doesn't fulfil its early promise.
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