With the great acting, the beautiful setting and a campervan as the main prop, this could only be classed as a top show.
The first sight of Hopetoun House (Scotland's finest stately home) is as you drive along the sweeping front drive. And it's very impressive. You can almost hear the clatter of horse’s hooves as the carriage and hansom cabs arrive. A pleasant walk along Hopetoun’s famous Lime Avenue takes you to what was once the bowling green, with it's ancient sun dial. The stage is set, with the centre piece; an old, rather battered, but still beautiful, VW campervan. People slowly drift in carrying seats, hampers and bottles of wine.
With a sudden clatter the players burst onto the small intimate stage and got straight into this superb and incredibly timeless play with "Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?" It's only when the geese honk over head do you realize just how much they have sucked you in. It's unusual to forget your surroundings when somewhere as visually stunning as Hopetoun house but there were no such lavish visual props on stage and none were needed with the excellent acting. They played it straight but up to date with the Nurse bringing a touch of Big Brother’s Jonty to the stage with a puppet. The players provided the music, when needed, with some atmospheric singing, whistling, drums and banging on the roof of the van. They climbed all over the campervan and watched the other actors on the stage from the roof, which somehow added to the closeness of it all. As if they too were watching, enthralled. Juliet (Ellie Piercy) popped from the top for the balcony scene as Romeo (Richard Madden) ran through the audience bringing us all cleverly into the action. Eliot Shrimpton acted the nurse and the friar, flitting seamlessly between the two, to much amusement from the crowd. But it wasn’t all played for laughs, and they brought a bleakness to the play that can sometimes be missed, with domestic abuse in the Capulet household and the cruelty of how the nurse is occasionally treated. The signature pieces between Romeo and Juliet can become caricatures, like Sunshine’s over the top portrayal in the film Harold and Maude, but these charismatic players handled them beautifully and passionately, bringing emotion and originality to difficult scenes. The sword fighting was amazing and you could hear loud gasps from the audience. Only too soon it was time to head back, along the now beautifully lit avenue, while the haunting cry’s of Romeo for Juliet echoed over the house, as the photographer made them act again to get the final picture.
21–23 Aug Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh
Box office 0131 226 0000
24–26 Aug Alnwick Castle, Alnwick, Northumberland
Box office 01665 511162
NEW 29-31 Aug Dulwich Park, London [ MAP ]
Box Office 020 7401 9919 (Shakespeare's Globe)