Nude Romeo and Sebastian

Last night on our multicultural TV station was a Dutch film called Philomena Says Sorry.
It’s a lightweight comedy about a girl who follows her actor boyfriend to New York where he is premiering as Romeo in a new production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
At the premiere he is very handsome and has a perfect body but she is so shocked to see him naked and having full on sex with Juliet on stage in front of hundreds of people, she stands up and denounces it – then goes on stage to drag him off, ruining his career. At first he dumps her, then when she says ‘sorry’ he forgives her, spoiling the whole film. She was a selfish cow.
The film was a bizarre blast from the past for me. When I was twenty I acted for The Westminster Shakespearian Company, a touring English theatrical group with a director determined to ‘put bums on seats’. In The Tempest, I played Sebastian who, in our version, arrived stark naked from a shipwreck, and meets Prospero’s pure daughter who is also naked. They explored each other’s bodies... delicately, we didn't have sex on stage. The performances were raving successes, especially after a Christian group stood up and denounced us and stopped the show one night. When they heard about it the audiences grew even larger.
Juliet’s boyfriend, a large, pugnacious rugby playing lawyer made a surprise visit to a performance and stomped on stage to drag her off... not because we were starkers and fondling each other, he liked seeing her naked on stage, but because he thought we were lovers when he wasn’t there. It wasn’t hard to convince him that was never going to happen, and he grudgingly said ‘sorry’.
We toured the show to Paris. then a friend and I Busked along the Riviera for the summer, performing on beaches. This photo was taken at Juan Les Pins. Life was much easier and more fun in the sixties