FIONA Ross’s production of Romeo and Juliet for the students at Arts University Bournemouth in their Palace Court Theatre pares the action and the story back to its bones, convincingly underlining the timelessness of Shakespeare’s greatest love story.

With daily news full of knife fights and teenage deaths, this is another story of gangs and revenge and careless violence and how they seep from generation to generation. It retains its ability to shock and horrify.

The 11 young actors, members of the BA (Hons) acting course, are supported by fellow AUB students from Design and Costume for Performance, Costume and Make up for Media and Performance in a production that richly demonstrates the value of collaboration at colleges and universities. It’s something AUB has always promoted, and the acquisition and development of the Palace Court gives all the students, and their audiences, an additional experience.

Played on a stage bare of all but scaffolding trolleys and screens, the action is fast and often furious. The text has not only been cut, but also re-pasted, so that the Queen Mab speech and many others move from their original places in the narrative. This often simplifies and intensifies the action, but it does depend on very clear speech. It must be very hard for teachers, in these days of preponderant television, film and voice-over, to justify the voice production needed in live theatre – but it is a vital part of stage performance.

There are powerfully convincing performances by Dylan Collie as the lovesick Romeo, Tonie Ortiz Westermark as the sparky, rebellious Juliet, Isabella J Crets Koenders as the bitterly conflicted Lady Montagu and Louise Scott-Moody as a suitably mercurial Mercutio. This intense production, with its high octane lighting and soundscapes, is another feather in the AUB cap.

Their next show is Emilia, performed at the Wallisdown Campus studio from 5th to 7th December.

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The photograph shows Mercutio (Louise Scott-Moody) and Romeo (Dylan Collie).