IT'S THE world's greatest love story.

For years people have treasured the tragic tale of star-crossed lovers Romeo & Juliet and the iconic characters have been used as inspiration for hundreds of love stories.

The Shakespeare play has audiences hypnotised by heartache as the deaths of these young lovers ends a feud between two families.

Now the story has been brought to Southampton as world class ballet returned to the Mayflower Theatre.

The English National Ballet took its audience back to the seventies with an inventive take on the traditional story.

The show, which leaves Southampton tomorrow (SAT), is packed with playful choreography set to a powerful Prokofiev’s score and performed live by the English National Ballet Philharmonic.

Originally created by Rudolf Nureyev in 1977 for English National Ballet to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the company has brought this choreography to stages across the world to critical acclaim.

The audience was left fascinated by the unusual take of a traditional ballet, with men dancing a passionate mazurka and the women preferring more static, sultry poses to suit the pounding orchestral score of Prokofiev.

As a love story, principal dancers Esteban Berlanga as Romeo and Begoña Cao, were playful and perfectly captured the innocence of a young romance.

The costumes were delicately sumptuous, illustrating every dancer's movement and transporting audiences to Renaissance Verona.

A lot of the performance was set in a piazza, with bustling market traders and street entertainers stuck in the middle of a restless fight between the Capulet and Montague families.

But in the beautiful grandeur of the Capulet's ball Romeo and Juliet meet and unleash a sequence of fateful events which unfold after a heartfelt duet in the Capulet's garden.

The performance was packed with humour, action and drama and left people catching their breath as the performance, led by artistic director Tamara Rojo, culminated with the lovers taking their own lives in a desperate bid to be together.