Following their successful modern take of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ students from Gumley went to see a modern take of another Shakespeare play, namely ‘& Juliet’ which retells the story of Romeo and Juliet.

&Juliet is a new west end juke box musical, showing at the Shaftesbury theatre. It tells the story of Juliet’s life rewritten on the assumption she got to decide her own fate. It asks if her final scene was actually the beginning of something different.

The musical opened on the 2nd November, with an official opening night on 20th November. The London opening followed a limited time showing in Manchester from 10th September to 12th October. It was packed with upbeat music, loved by all ages and full of comedic scenes that had the whole audience laughing. Along with amazing singing, dancing and acting the show presented a lot of character developments and an admirable story line. There was a very diverse cast depicting characters of different genders and sexualities.

A personal favorite aspect of the show was the multiple plot twists that occurred. The idea of the story was Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare writing it as the story unfolded. This made it interesting as they would change each other’s ideas and that lead the plot line to take conflicting outcomes.

The music was written by Max Martin, who has written songs for various pop artists including: Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry Celine Dion and Justin Timberlake. These put a fun twist on recent pop songs. In addition to the already existing songs there was an additional song cowritten by Jessie J.

The musical is up for 13 WhatsOnStage awards, including: best new musical, best actor in a musical, best actress in a musical, best supporting actor and many more.

There is a lot more to say about this show but I don’t want to give too much away. The music is great and the retelling of the 1597 play with a modern twist is really worth seeing.