Romeo and Juliet from the Rubbish Shakesperare Company - a review

by Liz Alexander

Keen for my eight year old son to adopt a love of the arts and having encountered questions about Shakespeare and ‘what the fuss was all about’, I was intrigued to see that the ‘Rubbish Shakespeare Company’ or the ‘RSC’ as they prefer to be known as (most definitely a pun intended!) were putting on a show at Warwick Arts Centre, which was likened to a Shakespeare play’s answer to ‘Horrible Histories’.

We arrived at Warwick Arts Centre and were shown into the studio, which I hadn’t realised was there. – Warwick Arts Centre prides itself on and does an excellent job of having the most appropriate platform for every show and as we walked into the studio with a minimum number of seats and steps leading right from the stage, we realised straight away that this was not going to be a performance we could just sit back and watch, it would definitely involve audience participation. My son was delighted at this prospect, which did not disappoint, as he was invited on to the stage once and had plenty of opportunities to get involved.

The show itself could most be likened to the style of a pantomime with the characters being characters but also being actors, breaking into discussion about the performance and then going back into character, which worked well and the team had the audience in the palm of their hands as a result with lots of references to popular culture as well. – My son couldn’t believe that a Capulet (or was it a Montague??) had been to Nando’s!

The performance consisted of three actors (who make up the Rubbish Shakespeare Company) who flitted between characters and also telling the story and ensuring authentic parts of the script were involved as well.

The three actors were hilarious and myself, my husband and son were in hysterics throughout.

Overall, my son had a brilliant first experience of Shakespeare, although I’m not sure when he starts studying it seriously that the experience will be anything like this one.

The actors stayed and met the audience at the end of the show and despite this being a friendly and hilarious performance, the whole thing was very slick and well put together.

Whilst I wouldn’t say that this particular show was suitable for a preschool audience, it was wonderful to see lots of things at Warwick Arts Centre for that age group, so if you were to visit and there were multiple adults, there would be lots going on for the younger ones if you wanted to take older children to see this hilarious and unmissable show!

Warwick Arts Centre has a varied and plentiful selection of activities for the remainder of this half term for all ages and into the summer months and the details of these can be viewed here.

The Rubbish Shakespeare Company are currently on tour and details of their remaining tour dates and further details about further performances and the theatre company themselves can be found here.