Romeo et Juliette: Monte Carlo Ballet, London Coliseum

 Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays; and the tale of the young lovers who defy their families’ enmity with tragic consequences has provided inspiration for many artists since it was first performed in Elizabethan England.

Choreographers the world over have been enticed by its potential. Over the years they’ve brought us varying readings of the story, from straightforward accounts of the original – such as MacMillan’s version danced by the Royal Ballet – to more adventurous interpretations, such as the controversial Rasta Romeo that recently ran at the Peacock.

Now is the turn of Jean-Chistophe Maillot, choreographer and Director of the Monte Carlo Ballet (Les Ballets de Monte Carlo). Known for his inquisitive mind , choreographic inventiveness, and determination to create modern-day readings of well-established classics, in Romeo et Juliette Maillot tackles the story from the point of view of Friar Laurence.

Deliberately avoiding what he terms a choreographic paraphrase of the play, Maillot takes us inside the tormented soul of Friar Laurence, the clergyman whose attempts to bring the lovers together tragically results in their deaths.

And that’s not all. In this ballet, Montagues and Capulets are young street gangs , whose enmity is more adolescent play-acting than ancestral family hatred, until an accidental blow unleashes a catastrophic sequence of events.

Maillot’s choreographic language is very much his own. Its basic technique is that of classical ballet, pointe shoes included; but he twists the movement into more contemporary forms, thus creating an original and energetic hybrid. He is well served by a 50-strong  company of outstanding dancers .

His staging draws on many sources, not least the cinema with, for example, the use of flashbacks to help tell the story .

Scenery and props are to reduced minimum. Maillot keeps the glorious Prokofiev score.

The Daily Telegraph saw  it and was impressed, describing it as “a gorgeously original Romeo et Juliette” where “modernist simplicity meets excitingly energetic dance.”

Monte Carlo Ballet visited London last year with Maillot’s interpretation of another staple of the classic repertoire, Swan Lake – Le Lac. Of that work The Guardian wrote, “impressively he infuses the dancing with vividly pointed character detail, and the superb Monte-Carlo dancers work their material to the hilt.”

And if that is not enough to whet your appetite….