Description:'Romeo and Juliet'. A Radio Ballad by Ewan MacColl with the London Critics Group.
BBC Schools Broadcast, May 1966. Producer; Charles Parker.
Production papers, scripts and correspondence realting to a Marxist interpretation of 'Romeo and Juliet'.
The production was broadcast in two parts. 'In these two programmes... we mean to have a group of young people study Shakespeare's play 'Romeo and Juliet' and then each tell a part of the story in their own words - and see, or rather hear, what happens! In this way we hope to have the basis of a Radio Ballad of Romeo and Juliet which has been re-cast in the language and experience of young people today, and from what they tell us of the plays meaning for them, we shall try to write songs which are equally authentic.'
The story as developed had two families from the East end of London, the Capleys and the Montagues, where the fathers had grown up together , gone to the same school, worked in an engineering factory, served in World War 11, and then set up in a car sales and repairs business. Both married and had one child each in 1946. After some years they disagreed over finances and the expansion of the firm.
The young people meet at a party and fall in love. There is a fight and one of their friends is killed in a car/motorbike accident. Juliet takes an overdose.
MS 4000/2/115