A 2009 youth, stage version of the show featured Valentine as the twin sister of Mercutio; this added an extra storyline where Valentine is in love with Benvolio and is jealous of Rosaline. Benvolio's final scene ends with Valentine running off stage after his rejection.

I find myself in somewhat of a quandary penning this review, since I was not -and still am not -quite sure of what I was watching. Was it a play, a Masque, a fantasia, a choreographic display or an intellectual ego trip? In the cold light of afterwards, I am inclined to think it was all of these, but the balance was heavily weighted in favour of the last two. Just before dawn, Romeo prepares to lower himself from Juliet’s window to begin his exile. Juliet tries to convince Romeo that the birdcalls they hear are from the nightingale, a night bird, rather than from the lark, a morning bird. Romeo cannot entertain her claims; he must leave before the morning comes or be put to death. Juliet declares that the light outside comes not from the sun, but from some meteor. Overcome by love, Romeo responds that he will stay with Juliet, and that he does not care whether the Prince’s men kill him. Faced with this turnaround, Juliet declares that the bird they heard was the lark; that it is dawn and he must flee. Her angry tirade to Juliet at the lovers tomb is wonderful, and reminiscent of Brian Patten's poem, A Few Questions About Romeo – "Could he still have drunk that potion had he known / without her the world still glowed / and love was not confined / in one shape alone? … Poor Romeo, poor Juliet, poor human race". After Juliet is a play written by Scottish playwright Sharman Macdonald. [1] It was commissioned for the 2000 [2] Connections programme, in which regional youth theatre groups compete to stage short plays by established playwrights. This performance seemed somewhat confused between its Renaissance and more modern setting Jonah Walker

Review by John Roth for TTC's Theatre Magazine (December 2005)

As a result, it is difficult for me to dwell on performances, which largely did not arrest us; I do not think this was always the fault of the performers, since I sensed there was a great deal of talent which could not fully blossom within the confines of the production. Some rose above it, however. First and foremost, Robert Drummer as Valentine: here is an assured, stylish, confident actor, with a fine presence and strong natural delivery, who created interest. Josh Duhigg ran him a close second as Benvolio; again, this actor has presence and command - also a stillness of movement and delivery, two valuable assets. The two lovers are dead and the Prince has forced peace upon the two households, the Capulets and the Montagues, but as everyone knows too well an enforced truce is barely a truce at all. She has some excellent long speeches, which remind the listener of the Shakespearean voice, which is inconsistently (though probably rightly) sounded in the play. To combat the coming of the light, Juliet attempts once more to change the world through language: she claims the lark is truly a nightingale. Where in the balcony scene Romeo saw Juliet as transforming the night into day, here she is able to transform the day into the night. But just as their vows to throw off their names did not succeed in overcoming the social institutions that have plagued them, they cannot change time. As fits their characters, it is the more pragmatic Juliet who realizes that Romeo must leave; he is willing to die simply to remain by her side.

The play makes “heavy use of repetition, and it seems as if the characters are just going in circles” Ian WangAfter Juliet | Progress Youth Theatre | Reviewed on: Tuesday 11 March 2008 | Performances run until Saturday 15 March 2008 | Box office: 0118 9606060 The Girl With Red Hair (2003) has been highly acclaimed. Once again, it explores mother-daughter love in a Scottish coastal setting, though this time it is more tragic: 17-year-old Roslyn, the red-headed girl of the title, has been killed in a car accident a year previously, and the play explores not only the devastating grief of her mother, but the impact on the whole community. The intensity of the subject-matter is lightened by touches of humour and the gradual suggestion that the bereaved may begin to heal, learn to love again and move forward with their lives. Rosaline is eaten up by unrequited love for Romeo and the conviction that Juliet was responsible for all the deaths and for the fate of the four people who are on trial for their lives. She's down a long way and has a journey to go but she is always fighting. She is a very feisty lady. There is hope that she is going to come through that deep despair of adolescence is to a place where there is light and life. In the end she is redeemed by Benvolio’s innocent love. Indeed, it’s Anne who provides most of the wit, not just verbal but philosophical. And it’s Wolfe’s performance — capped with a roof-raising rendition of the Celine Dion hit “That’s the Way It Is” — that gives the show its heart, an organ too often unheard from in musicals entirely focused on the ear. Most of the comedy derives from similar tensions; though “& Juliet” is jokey, and its authorship is entirely male, its feminist critique is real enough, winking alternately at Shakespeare’s assumptions and ours. At one point, Anne summarily up-ages Juliet by about a decade because she’s “not going clubbing with a 13-year-old” — nor (it goes unsaid) letting a 13-year-old marry.

Now after the lovers' plot and tragedy is uncovered she is angry with everything – with Juliet for having stolen her love, with Romeo for having betrayed her, with the Prince for having forced peace between the families, with her fellow Capulets for observing the peace. Textbook approach. It’s the kind of move that Shakespeare himself might have gone for and she, oh she finishes it off with a hanky representing the blood. That is lovely. No need for fancy pants special effects and… Beyond this, the production aspects were variable in effect. Some props – Valentine’s umbrella for example – were well used and added to the piece, but bringing several longswords onto the Corpus stage and actually trying to fight with them was not a wise decision. Lighting and sound were similarly hit and miss. The rain effect was good, until it lasted a few more scenes than necessary (or than made sense, once the action had moved inside), and the crypt sound effect would have added well to the atmosphere, had the silence between loops not broken it. The crypt lighting was more successful, and other changes were effective, but the lighting in other scenes was unnecessary. Playwright and novelist Sharman Macdonald was born in Glasgow in 1951. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, she graduated in 1972 and moved to London where she acted with the 7:84 theatre company and at the Royal Court Theatre. While she was working as an actress, she wrote her first play, When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout (1985), first performed at the Bush Theatre in 1984. The play won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.Presenter: Oh dear. What a pity! Shameful scenes of descent at the end there. And that is a sure fire way of getting yourself recast. The young lad Romeo has killed himself believing Juliet to be dead by poison and she has awoke to find him dead and killed herself with his dagger. It’s a veritable bloodbath and there’s not a dry eye in the house. But only if the director does his job right. Macdonald's daughter Keira Knightley appeared in the Heatham House Youth Centre's NT Connections production, which made the regional finals. [4] Director: That’s great. I really liked the way you did that. It is quite out there. And I just slightly worry that we might be alienating the audience too much so, if it’s alright with you I’d like to just try something else.