I played Romeo in this production at the Royal National Theatre Studio in London. Tim Supple, who had directed me in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, directed and Lucy Hall designed.

The RNT studio is an amazing place because you fully rehearse a play but only put on a couple of performances for an invited audience, and so it was with Romeo and Juliet. The amazing Sophie Thompson, whom I had worked with in As You Like It at the RSC was my Juliet and the cast also included Lenny James and June Watson.

What struck me most about playing Romeo was how tortured he is at the beginning of the play, and in many ways he is falsely represented by the connotation that a Romeo is just someone who keeps falling in love. On the contrary, at the beginning of the play there are several mentions of how depressed he has seemed and there is some relief that he falls in love and gets out of his misery