{"id":762613,"date":"2026-02-13T21:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T21:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/762613\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T21:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T21:36:20","slug":"juliet-and-romeo-crescent-theatre-birmingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/762613\/","title":{"rendered":"Juliet And Romeo – Crescent Theatre, Birmingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer: William Shakespeare<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adaptor and Director: Nathalie Bazan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lying Lips Theatre has past form in not shying away from tackling some of the most demanding, often harrowing, texts in the theatrical canon, not least Hecuba, \u2018Tis Pity She\u2019s A Whore, The Tempest and The Crucible. A highly attuned and disciplined ensemble cast led by the whip-crack vision of adaptor and director, Nathalie Bazan makes no mistake. So, as a bit of distraction, then, leaning more towards gang violence, drug use and underage sex in the mode of the Bard, they bring their unique panache to the greatest love story ever told.<\/p>\n

Drawing their name from Proverbs 12:22 \u2013 \u2018Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight.\u2019 (KJV) might just be being a bit previous in the humility department but, Lord, do they but not mightily deliver with the goods, the lads\u2019 and the ugly \u2013 an abomination most certainly not. Lips, true or false being subtly apposite given that there is one of Shakespeare\u2019s most enchanting lovers\u2019 tease and tempting dialogues between tonight\u2019s giddy, innocent ingenue Juliet, Lydia Ruth (of whom very much more later) the clue being in the revised title Juliet and Romeo), and the muscular and seemingly Celtic brogue brouhaha of Dan Trifunovic\u2019s Romeo. The title reversal to Juliet and Romeo speaks volumes. Trifunovic stays close to his brief as the air-headed, overindulged, impulsive brat-boy. It is Juliet who provides a much more rounded and complex character with Lydia Ruth running with it for all it\u2019s worth and then some.<\/p>\n

Given that Baz Luhrmann\u2019s 1996 wild-card, incandescent, high-octane paced adaptation of the text was looser and more outrageously bottom-pinching gooser than anything else dared since Peter Brooke\u2019s very naughty, early 1970s saucy take on Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream \u2013 Lips need to be hot off the mark if they want to stock some shock \u2013 which of course they do with the most outr\u00e9 \u00e9lan as is their trademark.<\/p>\n

The early Dance-Tranz burlesque banquet scene threatens to establish a decidedly Drag Queen aesthetic brought into sharp relief with Max Gibbon\u2019s Nurse, all camp, sloppy lipstick and slap \u2013 the jumble sale reject pink basque accessory offset by a gorilla-grade hairy chest. Only near to the fatal denouement does the affectatious mask fall away and the reality of events impact on his suppressed humanity.<\/p>\n

After the slighly deranged pre-performance projection of archive footage of a Circus ring montage of acrobats and humiliated animals and the banquet, Bazan allows Shakespeare\u2019s divine text time to breathe. Act 1\/Sc 5 has the seemingly gauche Juliet and Romeo as newfound lovers teasing, exploring metaphorical exchanges that riff on devout pilgrims and tender kisses. She wryly observes that Romeo kisses \u2018like the book\u2019. So how does she know about that then? The \u2018tender kiss\u2019 quote is a solemn portent of Romeo\u2019s poison suicide farewell over Juliet\u2019s supposed \u2018dead\u2019 body \u2013 \u2018And lips, O, you\/The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss.\u2019 There\u2019s that lips motif again!<\/p>\n

Impossible to name-check everyone in this highly talented, diverse and ridiculously young ensemble cast but Ross Gilby\u2019s oleaginous, predatory Paris deserves mention if only for his departing triumphant \u2018YES!\u2019 when Capulet capitulates to his suitoring for Juliet\u2019s hand in marriage. Likewise, Harry Brooks\u2019 wildly interpretive take on Mercutio that riffs on a ganja-gangsta Jah-head loose cannon. Nick Hessling\u2019s Capulet is a belligerent, corpulent, bull-whipping bully glued to the bottle, swaggering about like a tie-dyed Genghis Khan after a brown acid downer at Woodstock.<\/p>\n

But with Lydia Ruth\u2019s Juliet, the bar is being set very high indeed. Such confidence set against intense expressive \u00e9lan and interpretive depth marks her as one to keep a very keen eye on. Final mention must go to Bazan\u2019s exquisite lighting, where the influence of Carravaggio\u2019s chiaroscuro marks out Juliet\u2019s visceral dilemma with intense, austere tenderness. As ever, Lying Lips play all their wild cards with aplomb and heterodox abandon, betting everything on the house with a royal flush of Jokers and winning hands down.<\/p>\n

Runs until 13 February 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\tThe Reviews Hub Star Rating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer: William Shakespeare Adaptor and Director: Nathalie Bazan Lying Lips Theatre has past form in not shying away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,70464,223826,393,4884,223827,223828,223829,223830,223831,223832,223833,16,15,8820],"class_list":{"0":"post-762613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-crescent-theatre","11":"tag-dan-trifunovic","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-harry-brooks","15":"tag-juliet-romeo","16":"tag-lydia-ruth","17":"tag-max-gibbon","18":"tag-nathalie-bazan","19":"tag-nick-hessling","20":"tag-ross-gilby","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-william-shakespeare"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116065480585627645","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}