SHAKESPEARE will meet Stockport when the Globe Theatre’s touring company comes to Heaton Park this month.

Thank Alan Morrissey for the down-to-earth approach – he will play Romeo in the open-air production and the 25-year-old from Stockport is keeping his accent to the fore.

"It works better that way because the emotion is genuinely expressed better in the natural intonation," he insists. "And anyway, that’s the way I speak."

The Bard would have appreciated this populist approach because it’s sincere – Alan is a real fan, a student of Shakespeare who loves the plays and helps make them come alive for others.

His background is quite unusual for a Shakespearian thespian. He was born in the Golden Buck pub in Stockport, where his parents were the licensees, and the family moved from pub to pub during his childhood.

He went to St James’s Secondary School in Cheadle Hulme and had always enjoyed acting in plays. But when he joined the central Stockport AB Centre of Performing Arts and came under the guiding influence of principal Alicia Bardsley, his skills flourished. Alan had always loved Shakespeare – "it’s the language and the wordplay – the same reason I like hip-hop music," he says – and applied to join the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

He impressed and was one of 14 to be taken on the three-year course out of 1,000 applicants.

His early upbringing and social exposure to a wide cross-section of people started to come in handy: "I’ve always been happy to talk to anyone, and you especially need that when you’re working with a group of actors you’ve never met before."

He thoroughly enjoyed the course and at the final showcase performed well enough to impress a large number of visiting agents. "I was approached by 22 straight away, which was amazing," he recalls.

Part of Alan’s immediate charm was, and is, his Stockport accent. Now living in London’s Finsbury Park, he said: "So I’m considered a Northerner here, but when I go home my friends and family call me a Southern Jessie because of the way I speak!" He adds: "There is an

accepted honesty about a Manchester accent, though. And I do try to be honest when I play any role, helping people to understand the individual."

Work came surprisingly swiftly after he graduated, with a variety of theatre roles, including Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing. He spent a year and a half with the Royal Shakespeare Company, lapping up the atmosphere, experience and skills of established actors. It also gave him a chance to study Shakespeare’s plays more closely.

Alongside these classic works, Alan is also a great fan of "gritty Northern stuff" like Shameless and Clocking Off.

Just after leaving college, he auditioned for the part of Sarah Lou’s boyfriend, Scooter, in Coronation Street: "I didn’t get it but it was for an initial long contract and it wasn’t the right for that time anyway."

Other plays came along, as well as the actor’s almost compulsory ‘resting’ between jobs, and Alan has also spent much of his spare time at workshops and master classes as a member of a small company of actors called The Factory.

Through them, he was invited by Globe director Elizabeth Freestone to join the touring production of Romeo and Juliet. "It’s like a lot of the Globe productions and done with just a small company and limited scenery and props," said Alan.

"This play is all done out of a campervan, which is meant to be like the cart that the original players used to take round to places to put on performances. It’s quite unusual as each performance is different – we use our surroundings and you never know where someone is coming in from. It makes each show fresh and exciting."

As for Alan, he’s happy to be coming back to his home city and seeing his family and friends.

"A few of the cast have never been to Manchester before," he says, "so I’m going to take them to some good bars and places to eat – show them why Manchester is great."

Romeo and Juliet will run at Heaton Park from Tuesday, June 17 to Sunday, June 22. For tickets priced £15 ring 0870 428 0785