From Welsh playwright Gary Owen (Iphigenia in Splott) comes another contemporary spin on a classic — Shakespeare’s story this time, set in Cardiff, where two young lovers face a very different set of problems from those confronting their aristocratic Veronese namesakes.

Alex Kirwan and Estelle Davis: Romeo & Julie. Photo © Phil Erbacher

Our Romeo (Alex Kirwan) is an unemployed teenage dad struggling to care for the baby he fathered in a one-night stand. He lives with an alcoholic mother who wants him to give the child up to social services. Both will have a better life if he does, Mum argues – and at this point, it’s easy to be swayed by her reasoning.

From one of the slightly posher streets in the neighbourhood comes Julie (Estelle Davis), a bright young woman with ambitions to study physics at Cambridge. It’s all she has wanted since she was 12, and her parents have done everything they can to support her journey.

They meet in a library café where Romeo has nodded...