The Course of True Love

School boys, unrequited love and an unexpected limp.

"Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished." Juliet and I lamenting in Act III Scene 2.

It was a thrill to be playing the Nurse in our school production of Romeo and Juliet. Not only because the Shakespeare bug had bitten (not a reference to the plague), but also because the cast included boys from our brother school.

That’s right, actual adolescent males. Up until R&J the school grounds had been a testosterone-free zone. Any lads seen loitering near the school gates or meandering along the (pristine) school hedge were reprimanded by growling members of staff patrolling the perimeter.

As such, I’d had minimal contact with the race of beings known as School Boys and it was most exciting to be exchanging Shakespearean dialogue with these elusive creatures. There were exchanges of an unmentionable kind too over the course of the production run, but given that I was going through an awkward stage (one that would last the next 3 years) I was spared any such shenanigans. No undertones of bitterness and envy to detect here.

Ironically, when long-lashed Romeo declared his affections for our Juliet at the wrap party and attempted to lure her to a secluded spot, the maiden (my buddy Lucie as it happens) made it very clear that she was asexual and that any flirty asides had been strictly in character. I spied opportunity and made it very clear that I, the trusty Nurse, did not ascribe to celibacy, but Romeo only had eyes (and those bloody lashes) for his Juliet.

Our cast was… colourful. Mercutio was bonkers, which was fitting I suppose (his Queen Mab speech may well have been substance-induced); Friar Lawrence had the tenor of a man thirty years his senior; and the Nurse developed a severe limp out of the blue on opening night...

Said limp was the result of shattering my knee on a step as I raced into school earlier that morning, no doubt hastening to Science class in fear of being “unseam’d from the nave to the chaps” for being tardy. Point is, knee came into contact with concrete and the character of Juliet’s Nurse was embellished with a war-time injury.

What can I say, the course of true love never did run smooth.

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