Romeo and Juliet examines young people failed by those who should support them; SquidInk’s setting, a failing women’s prison, sharpens the context. It also turns standard Shakespeare on its head by casting mostly women, with just a few men, to flirt and cause trouble.

Mob boss Imogen Edwards-Lawrence (Capulet) in sharkish lipstick and sequinned hoodie, dominates and deals, acting as father and mother to her mess of jumpy kinsmen. By contrast, the Montagues seem low and withdrawn; Libby Taylor is standout as a depressed and anxious Benvolio. But they do have a golden child in Mercutio (Lucy McIlgorm, charismatic and psychotic), the maddest fighter in HMP Verona and a cut above her fellow inmates. The Capulets field a stressed and stabby child – Tybalt, captured brilliantly by Lara Deering as less prince of cats, more sixth-form psycho, ultimately distraught at killing her adored crush and frenemy. Able meddling comes from Nancy Case as a burnout female vicar, and old lag Gaby Kaza is fantastic as Nurse, Juliet’s bunkmate and Capulet’s lewd lieutenant. But it is Lorelei Piper's Romeo, a brittle whip of lethal romantic intensity, and Emelye Moulton's Juliet smashed sideways by the force of first love, who melt the stage in an absolute thermonuclear explosion of adolescent desire. Around them, the unconcerned incarcerated deliver disaster by unconsidered text message, random shivs and drug deals. The panopticon setting allows exploration of complicity, particularly for Paris (Joe Woodman).

The production is raising money for Acción Interna - it was their version of Romeo and Juliet in a Colombian women’s prison which inspired this show. We see views of this production in the first scene, projected as the backdrop to a stage filled with barbed wire, broken furniture, crowd barriers, and scaffolding. Its clearest echo comes in the final scene, where the Prince’s statement of peace from tragedy to his desolate, bereaved prisoners seems inevitably and hopelessly doomed.

This was a key example of a student drama company thinking up and developing an individual concept for its chosen play and then pressing it home to the end. Director Conky Kampfner's staging of the play in H.M. Prison Verona was inspired by her sister's (?) involvement in a charity trying to alleviate conditions for women imprisoned in Colombia.

The idea of a world of young people badgered and dominated by their parents and others of an older generation came over strongly and is perfectly suited to Shakespeare's intentions. The marriage between the 16th century text and both the modernity of the timeline and the particularity of the setting was not in the least clunky, and this was an instance where the concept made the audience reflect upon the demands on individual freedom: e.g. rigid adherence to gang norms, and the forming of relationships: e.g. marriage imposed on women at age 13 going on 14 - both in Shakespeare's time and our own.

Conky had the action filling not only the whole width of the playing space but its whole height as well - admirable ambition - and the fight scenes were pleasingly violent: 'These violent delights have violent ends', the Friar told us later. I thought in the first half there was a slight tendency towards rushing the text, with at times the poetry being brought out with a little lack of projection, and at other times the converse pertaining. But first night diffidence may be the reason for this since I also thought the problem largely righted itself after the interval.

This set, music, casting and lighting all made their contribution to the concept. The metaphorical notion of Matilda Granger's set comprised entirely hard, metal surfaces (save some suitably bed bug-looking bedding on the Gulag-style tiered beds) in the form of heavy-duty crowd-control barriers, scaffolding making up high-level platforms, and razor-wire. The brooding electronic/instrumental music was composed by Bill Wu, and though its volume level at times somewhat obscured the speaking of the verse in the first half hour, particularly when both Romeo and Juliet tended to hang back at the rear of the stage, it made a big atmospheric contribution, especially since it was not over-used.

Lighting by James Fellows and assistants dealt in sharp contrasts - stark spotlights, sudden blackouts, film noir-type shadowy chiaroscuro, and I liked a fine hollow-circle effect at one juncture. Costumes by Hannah Kessler and assistant were variations on the utilitarian and institutional, aiding the idea of oppression of the prison inmates by their guards and, at one remove, by their Verona elders.

Of the cast, Romeo (Lorelei Piper) and Juliet (Emelye Moulton) were commendably word-perfect and had a fair bit of chemistry together. They were surrounded by some exceptionally good acting of the secondary roles: Lucy McIlgorm's Mercutio had real fire, Libby Taylor did really well to bring zip to her Benvolio, a difficult feat, and Imogen Edwards-Lawrence was as hard-bitten as they come as both Lord and Lady Capulet; I was shaking in my shoes in the front row! Gaby Kaza was a strong, protelarian, motherly Nurse, Nancy Case a sympathetic Friar (and spoke the blank verse exceptionally well) and there was not a single weak link elsewhere.