RSC First Encounter: The Taming of The Shrew (Tour – Blackpool)

For those of a certain generation, Shakespeare at school was often thought of as something to be dreaded. You read it, learnt sections by heart, and if you were lucky you might get to see a stuffy production in period dress.

The kids of today live in a different world. Glued to their mobile phones, X-Boxes and laptops, they see life in short, highly dramatic chunks – 140 characters and you're done.

So the RSC certainly have their work cut out if they want to introduce the Bard to these theatregoers of the future. Thankfully, that job is made easier by productions such as this. Cutting The Taming of the Shrew down to just over an hour will be viewed as a travesty by Shakespeare purists.

They would have apoplexy at the thought of the roles being reversed. But bearded Glaswegian Forbes Masson made a feisty and highly memorable Katherine – in a fetching Elizabethan frock – with the slight, besuited form of Katy Stephens proving more than a match as Petruchio. In these days of Mrs Brown's Boys, who's to bat an eyelid?

The narrative fair flies by, and a mainly school age audience made merry at moments of near-slapstick violence. There was certainly plenty to discuss in the interval.

The second part of the show comprised a well devised and highly enjoyable workshop, with the cast answering soe imaginative and highly original questions from the audience and acting out a couple of scenes in a variety of ways. It ended with a rhythmic singalong which brought everyone to their feet.

I'm by no means the target audience for this show, but still I left the theatre feeling I had definitely learned something about the play. All around me, young voices were excitedly chatting about what they had just seen – which is surely what the RSC was setting out to do in the first place.

The Taming of the Shrew continues at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool until 1 March

– Sandra Mangan