In the middle of The Walks, a secluded garden in the centre of London’s Gray’s Inn, there was a rare sight: a clutch of bicycles, padlocked to a post. Even the high-powered lawyers, whose chambers surround the garden, are not permitted to cycle along its paths — alas, no pedalling Rumpole to be seen here.

So it was a fair bet that I had found the set of Oxford Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet, and that this new production is set in Oxford itself.

“That’s right,” director Guy Retallack confirmed. “When you’re staging a play outdoors, and the locations are as beautiful as they are here at Gray’s Inn, and in Oxford, you’ve got quite a battle on your hands just to focus the audience’s attention on the narrative that’s going to unfold. So I thought that I would make the gardens themselves part and parcel of the world that Romeo and Juliet are inhabiting — an awful lot of the action takes place outdoors anyway.”

Advance publicity for the production sets the scene: “Romeo, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, meets the beautiful Juliet, a Capulet and his family’s sworn enemy. They fall in love, but the high walls of the colleges cannot hide their passion, and only serve to inflame the family feud.”

So, I asked Guy, does his production draw on the infighting that has been known to go on behind “the high walls of the colleges”?

“That’s basically the idea. There’s a world of ritual in university life. So he is Professor Capulet. Because I have set the production loosely in the 1950s, I wanted Montague to come from a slightly different background: he is a college lodge porter, he comes from that world.

“So, the Capulets are the gownees, and the Montagues are the townees. But I didn’t want to tie it down too much — if you start scrutinising those kind of things too carefully, you lose the play.

“The idea of setting the production in the late 1950s came quite early on. The struggle between parents and children runs through Romeo and Juliet, it’s one of the key points about the play. It’s a point that’s particularly pertinent to the late 1950s, so using that period seemed to fit very well.”

It’s not surprising that Guy Retallack has decided to set his Romeo in Oxford, for both the play and the city were key factors in his decision to become a theatre director.

“My brother John [director of the Oxford Stage Company, 1989 -99] was part of a festival in 1977 or 78 — it was called Summer in Oxford. I went along as a young helper at the Oxford Union, which is where the theatre space was set up. There was a production of Measure for Measure, and I can remember the particular moment when Claudio reasons with himself, and with his sister, as to why he should be let off the death sentence.

“I thought it was so beautiful, that was my crystallisation. Then I fell in love with a girl in Oxford, who was a few years older than me — not a few years younger like Juliet. Also, I’ve worked on Romeo and Juliet before, as assistant director to John in 1994, and that production played in Oxford.”

Oxford Shakespeare’s Romeo will play in Wadham College Gardens. The location brings back unpleasant memories for me: I once saw an uncut student production of the play there, and as the college clocks all around struck 11, I uncharitably thought, “Juliet, get on with it. Just swallow the poison and die, then we can all go home”.

“I’ve cut the play quite substantially,” Guy laughed when I told him this story.

“It will run for about two and a quarter hours, and it moves along very swiftly. I know there will be people saying, ‘oh my God, you’ve cut my favourite line’. But I think I’ve kept the essence of the play very much intact.”

lOxford Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet continues in the Walled Garden, Wadham College, Oxford, until August 22. Tickets: 01865 305305 or online at ticketsoxford.com