I HAVE never seen a Shakespeare play move an audience so much as Joe Meighan’s production of Romeo and Juliet at Altrincham Garrick.

Joe has used imagination to create a play that, while sticking to Shakespeare’s immortal words, uses modern dress, and a moral to make this play, presented 400 years after Shakespeare’s death, leap to life.

Set at the millennium, the Montagues and Capulets run rival record companies.

The striking feature is the fight scenes. We have a huge battle at the start which is nothing compared with the stag-like conflicts between Tybalt (Jackson Hayes) and Mercutio (Tom Oliver) who dies.

In revenge, Romeo kills Tybalt in another violent fight.

These fights are graphic, disturbing, full of anger and, at times, even clumsy but they are realistic.

Added to this, the 23-year-old director has introduced music including a remarkable unaccompanied harmony.

Juliet was originally 13 but Joe has realistically upped her age to 16. Rebecca Myers, who plays her, is only 17. She gives a passionate performance as she and 17-year-old Haroun Al Jeddal illustrate how life’s strongest emotion, love, can overcome body and mind.

The part of Juliet’s nurse is interesting, made more so by Beverley Stuart-Cole. Deeply caring of Juliet, she adds ripples of humour.

Mark Butt’s Friar Laurence is played well as a wise mediator.

The surprise ending makes you realise that attitudes, unchanged since the sixteenth century, need changing.

* Romeo and Juliet is at the Garrick playhouse until September 24. For tickets ring 0161 928 1677 or visit altrinchamgarrick.co.uk. Star rating: * * * * *