Knife-crime summit... on Romeo and Juliet

Published on Wednesday 11 February 2009 18:03

THE director of a production of Romeo And Juliet being staged for thousands of teenagers met police yesterday over fears that Shakespeare's play glamorises knife crime.

Bill Buckhurst is putting on the tragic love story for 10,000 young people at the famous Globe Theatre in central London.

The 16th-century play centres on one of the best-known, bloody gang wars in English literature. Feuding between the Capulet and Montague families leads to three fatal stabbings and ultimately to Juliet committing suicide with Romeo's dagger.

Before meeting Commander Steve Allen, of the Metropolitan Police, one of the officers leading the struggle against knife crime, Mr Buckhurst said the plot would not be changed radically to cover up the violence.

But his colleague, Katharine Grice said: "It is about taking responsibility and having awareness that knife crime touches on the lives of so many teenagers in London. These scenes must not be seen to glamorise it.

"What the director learns from that discussion might feed into rehearsals.

"I don't think this will change it dramatically, but it would influence the way we approach it."

This is not the first time parallels have been drawn between Romeo and Juliet and knife violence.

Boris Johnson, the London mayor, said last year:

"We need to deglamorise knife crime and make clear to people that this is moronic and wasteful. This is not the death of Mercutio taking place on the streets of London."