REVIEW: Romeo and Juliet @ Salisbury Playhouse

Wiltshire Creative has launched the 2026 Salisbury International Arts Festival with a promenade production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which is a must-see.

Set in and around Salisbury Playhouse, which is celebrating 50 years of the current building, Gareth Machin directs an ambitious and immersive take on the classic tale of star-crossed lovers. 

Areas in and around Salisbury Playhouse have been transformed to create a Verona on the streets of Salisbury, utilising the covered car park in the Maltings, the rounds about just outside the Playhouse and City Hall, as well as parts of the theatre itself. 

The audience follows the story and the cast, wearing headphones, and they feel part of the performance. @GirlAboutSalisbury told Salisbury Radio that "Everyone should go and see this. If you only see one show at Salisbury Playhouse this year, it has to be this!"

Listen to her review here:

Steve Carter wrote on Instagram, "I reckon we can stop staging Romeo and Juliet now. This production is going to be hard to beat. It's an ambitious yet intimate evening with the star-crossed lovers, and easily one of my favourite shows of the year."

Performed by a professional cast of ten alongside Stage 65 Youth Theatre and 100 community participants, Romeo and Juliet invites audiences to step inside the world of the play. Wearing headphones and guided backstage, indoors and outdoors throughout the Playhouse, they will encounter the fully reimagined world of the battleground between the Capulets and Montagues. An array of vehicles, parkour sequences and a commissioned soundtrack heighten the gritty action, amplifying the production’s scale and intensity. 

L to R Benjamin Lafayette (Benvolio) and Shaniya Hira (Tybalt) © Craig Fuller IMG_4120

Will Fletcher (Dear England) plays Romeo, and Grace Wylde (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, TINA – The Tina Turner Musical) is Juliet. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is presented by Wiltshire Creative as the centrepiece of Salisbury International Festival 2026.

2026 marks the 50th anniversary of Salisbury Playhouse, which was built in 1976. As one of only three producing theatres in Southwest England with its own on-site workshop and wardrobe facilities, the 50-year-old venue plays a vital role in the UK’s theatre ecology. This staging of Romeo and Juliet showcases the building and the Playhouse’s producing capabilities as a 50th anniversary celebration.  

Salisbury Playhouse’s major reimagining of Romeo and Juliet juxtaposes a 400-year-old tragedy into a 50-year-old Brutalist, urban setting, re-framing the play for a 21st-century audience. It recreates the theatre foyer as the opulent Capulet ballroom, Salisbury’s central car park becomes a gritty youth hangout, and an extended stage in the theatre will host Juliet’s teenage bedroom. Audiences of 300 will follow the story as it unfolds across these spaces, moving through backstage areas and parts of the building rarely, if ever, seen by the public. The production foregrounds the Playhouse’s Brutalist architecture, exploring and celebrating its 1970s design and inviting audiences to experience the theatre in unexpected ways.

The production also shines a spotlight on the venue’s environs, opening up the space in front of the Playhouse and City Hall as a shared civic arena. The functional roundabout is reimagined as a symbol of unity through a sculptural intervention as part of the set, while the building’s front balcony becomes Juliet’s.

Shaniya Hira (Tybalt) and young company© Craig Fuller IMG_408

Among the cast are Will Fletcher (Dear England) as Romeo, Grace Wylde (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, TINA – The Tina Turner Musical) as Juliet, Patric Fusco as Paris, Shaniya Hira as Tybalt, Benjamin Lafayette (Stranger Things: The First Shadow) as Benvolio and Mark Springer (Henry V, Macbeth) as Lord Capulet.

Returning to Salisbury Playhouse (Wiltshire Creative Productions) is Rebecca Cooper (A Chorus of Disapproval, How the Other Half Loves, Her Naked Skin) as the Nurse/Prince,  Alistair Cope (Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense) as Friar Laurence, Will Jennings (Dick Whittington) as Mercutio and Emilia Williams (Aladdin) as Lady Capulet.

For the Playhouse team, it was vital that young voices were, and continue to be, at the heart of the creative and design process and bring their own ideas musically and choreographically. Young Ambassadors have been included, working with the in-house teams and external agencies. Young people will be performing at the heart of the production, with up to 70 young people making up the Montague and Capulet youths.  

Gareth Machin, Artistic Director, Wiltshire Creative, said: “Working with the Young Ambassadors, we became acutely aware that they are living in a time where young people’s lives, across the world, are being impacted by conflict, which is at the heart of this story. Young people reclaiming spaces within the city is an important story because Salisbury is a city that is often perceived to have very little for young people and a place where older people’s needs are prioritised. A story about generational conflict feels pertinent, and our version of Romeo and Juliet reflects this, with the actions of the young people within the play offering some form of hope for the future and challenging the inevitability of situations. Hopefully, this production will both create opportunities for young people and also inspire future possibilities - we know how transformative these experiences can be for local people.”