Nothing is more calculated to trigger a groan of despair than “updated” Shakespeare performed by teenagers. But this cut-down Romeo and Juliet from Jamaica is rather lovely, directed in a low-key, easy style by Jamaican-British film-maker Paul Bucknor, and acted with real feeling. It started life as a reality TV show following kids in schools putting on Shakespeare. What we get here is the winning school’s production, featuring a handful of performances that give the pros a run for their money with a naturalistic sensitive delivery of the lines that makes you really pay attention to the text.
The story begins at a secondary school, where an English teacher sets Romeo and Juliet as homework. One of his students is Dean (Dashawn Miller), a young carer with a lot on his plate: looking after his sick mum and working at the family food stall. By the time he gets round to reading the play, it’s the middle of the night and Dean is half asleep. But the story grips him; so much so that he plays it in his head, casting himself as Romeo and giving the role of fair Juliet to the girl he fancies from across the street (Shanice Gowan). His teachers and classmates slot into the other parts.
Turning Romeo and Juliet into a teenager’s fantasy is actually genius, since the play is totally adolescent in its soapy me-and-you-dissolving-into-each-other take on love. It also dangles the possibility of a happy ending, after Dean snaps out of the play, and back to real life, his crush waiting in the wings. My only complaint is that the romance is not exactly blazing – but the tussles between the rival Montagues and Capulets are terrific, out on streets full of colour, reggae playing. Less shouty and choreographed than is traditional, they’re like real fights between teenagers, foolish bravado getting out of control. And in no other Shakespeare will you get this line: “I heard you cook a wicked leg of jerk chicken.”
