18 - Romeo and Juliet

While at drama school a group of friends and I tried on several occasions to launch ourselves as the next Monty Python team. I’m guessing most colleges or universities had such a group of like minded folk who wanted to too do their own comic thing. Our team was named REPO, after of all things the Alex Cox movie 'Repo Man'. 

One of our first attempts was a radio comedy based on Romeo and Juliet under the title ‘Tales from the Tavern’. The five of us sat around a table, briefly looked at a scene from the play, dished out the characters (some how I was handed the part of Juliet) and with the aid of a tape recorder improvised the scene. As the only REPO man with a typewriter it fell to me to transcribe and edit the funniest bits. We then met once more round the table, with a very loose script before us and a series of unorthodox implements with which to make sound effects, and recorded ‘Episode One – Romeo and Juliet’.

There was some damn good stuff in there as I recall. Absurd highlights include riding a hamster in lieu of a horse, a missing macramé set and my favourite exchange:

Juliet: But why is he called Paris?
Nurse: Well, you know the Eiffel Tower?
Juliet: Yes.
Nurse: Exactly!

 

Not surprisingly of the five of us at that table two have continued on as comic writers / performers with film, TV and radio credits to their name. And the 'leader' of the troupe I discovered is also still dealing out Shakespeare. He tackled Hamlet just last year as director and ‘dramaturg’ in an Anglo / Polish production.

REPO went on to do one or two other projects during our time at drama school but we never returned to ‘The Tavern’ which was a shame. We did draw swords with the Bard on one other occasion but that is a tale for another time… 

And Finally – Fourteen! Juliet’s only fourteen?! They wisely brushed over that fact quite quickly when I studied the text at school…

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