PLAYING Shakespeare’s best-loved tragedy for laughs is startlingly novel, even for the Castle Players, which boasts fine comedic actors, but under Jill Cole’s direction the pointlessness of prolonged factional enmity was a persistent subtext that rose to a moving and pitiful climax.

In this open air version, the scene was 1960s’ Verona-on-Sea, with the Montagues represented by a rowdy gang of leather-clad Rockers and the Capulets as conservative Mods.

As audience members arrived for picnics on the lawn, aromas from a fish and chip van and stalls selling candy floss and ice cream added to the hugely entertaining overall experience.

Simon Pell’s seaside set with sand and deckchairs was dominated by high scaffolding serving as a pier for promenading and for the balcony.

Exits and entrances were enhanced, Heartbeat-style, by period pop music or Gregorian chant, while sounds off included motorbike revving and police whistles to great effect.

The large cast of amateur actors rose magnificently to the task of portraying holiday makers, servants, policemen and townsfolk moved or affected by gang fights and family drama, with superb comic performances from Chris Best as a stooped and arthritic Nurse and Andrew Stainthorpe as a French butler with pet dog in tow. Ian Kirkbride’s authoritative chief constable was also well done.

Amid uproarious comedy in the first half, undercurrents of violence were epitomised by Oliver Smith’s bitterness as athletic wild rebel Mercutio and Steven Bainbridge’s almost psychopathic thug Tybalt, while Laurence Sach’s parental tyranny was truly chilling.

The fateful attraction between Rob Capon’s smouldering Billy Fury lookalike Romeo and Ella Blackburn’s fresh-faced naturalness as Juliet was beautifully choreographed, and their key speeches were movingly expressed in a mostly sombre second half, ending with sad and pertinent focus on teenage suicide caused by conflict beyond their control.

Pru Farrier