Juliet emerges in a frock that is a blush of tequila sunrise set off by

Juliet emerges in a frock that is a blush of tequila sunrise, set off by an ivory bolero jacket. The performance by Sian Brooke lives up to that outfit – ardent, astringently intelligent, speaking the verse with the kind of urgency and naturalism that you would apply to an EastEnders script, were you so situated. Matthew Rhys as Romeo tears up the rule book, but not with any attention-seeking bravura. He simply is Romeo, Gill’s Romeo – Welsh, and with the kind of springy black hair that you can hear growing out of his body.

One of the essential things about producing this play is that you should have a leading actor who is equal to Juliet’s desire. At its best – and it does not sustain the same level of achievement unbrokenly – it is like lying next to someone post-coitally, naked of course, but surprised by the rhythm of the heartbeat that syncopates rather than chimes with one’s own. This familiar – over-familiar, even – text, come across in every line in this way – ever-surprising, as intimate as your own face in a mirror, and yet profoundly new.The casting in itself is a wonder – and the clothes. But its greatness stems from the fact that, throughout, you feel that it was written last week, possibly by Gill himself, who is in the enviable position of being one of our greatest playwrights as well as one of our greatest directors.Of course, the deep compliment should go to Michael Boyd for, only three or four months into the job, having the vision to hire Gill, who is not an obvious choice to be helming this of all tragedies in this of all seasons It’s the beat of the thing that is so brilliant; the pulse. This production is in period, the actors’ thighs bulging in tights.

It says a lot for the production that it survives this decor, for the decor undoubtedly leads one to fear the worst.There are those of us who do not like Romeo and Juliet, the level of dislike ranging from professional tiredness to private, heretical thoughts that chunks of it are not terribly well written. With masterly economy, Polanski insinuates a gathering antagonism into their games-playing until violence seems almost inevitable. Krzysztof Komeda’s languid jazz score keeps the atmosphere on a deceptively even keel.. It’s an extraordinary achievement by any stretch of the imagination, but for Peter Gill, a man in his sixties, not just to reinvigorate, but to re-inaugurate Shakespeare’s most youthful and hormonally perturbed tragedy is the kind of experience that in England does not lead to awards, but should. Nurse, to the vomitorium.Knife in the Water (PG)Roman Polanski’s superb debut feature from 1962, showing at the NFT, cooks up a three-way sexual tension that glances back to the first Ripley film, Plein Soleil, and anticipates the 1988 thriller Dead Calm.A married couple pick up a young drifter on their way to a boating weekend; once at sea the two men subtly attempt to impose on one another as they compete for the woman’s favour.