About Steve

Plays

Adaptations

Publications

The Playpen

The Cut Shakespeare

Back Street Romeo

Back Street Romeo

An ‘East Side Story’ in modern Cockney with a nicely sardonic humour. A much superior evening.

Rosemary Say, The Sunday Telegraph

Follows closely the story of the Shakespeare original but transposes the characters into an East London setting. (The two feuding families, for example, are gangsters and trade unionists respectively, and Friar Lawrence runs a youth club.) The dialogue is in modern, colloquial form, and there are some songs. First produced at the Half Moon Theatre in 1979.

Photos

Script Excerpt

Romeo: You from round here?

Juliet: Used to be.

Romeo: Don’t remember seein’ you before.

Juliet: I been away.

Romeo: I woulda remembered.

Juliet: Me an’ all.

Romeo: Yeh?

Juliet: You workin’?

Romeo: Not much. Well not at all actu’lly. Not yet.

Juliet: I’m goin’ a start next week.

Romeo: Workin’?

Juliet: Lookin’. –– I been away at school.

Romeo: Oh. (Grins) It’s all right, en it.

Juliet: What?

Romeo: Lookin’. I’m enjoyin’ it, anyway.

Juliet: What, for work?

Romeo: No, at you.

Juliet: Funny way to put it.

Romeo: Funny ways are the best some times. You get fed up with ordinary ways.

Juliet: Yeh …

Steve Gooch Publications   ·   Conaways, Langham Road, Robertsbridge, East Sussex TN32 5DT

Last updated: Wednesday, 3rd March 2021
https://www.stevegooch.info/plays/back-street-romeo.php
© 1969-2023 Steve Gooch Publications