Royal Mail mocked for Romeo and Juliet letterbox tribute to mark Shakespeare's birthday

The Royal Mail has been mocked for a Shakespeare birthday tribute featuring Romeo and Juliet despite the play ending in tragedy because of a delayed letter.

The post service decorated one of its iconic red post boxes outside The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon with famous quotes from Shakespeare’s work to mark his birthday.

Posting a photo on Twitter, the Royal Mail wrote: “It’s Shakespeare’s birthday today, so to mark the occasion we’ve decorated a post box!

“Lead actors from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ are here next to the postbox, which features quotes from some of Shakespeare's most famous work.”

But many people pointed out the irony in using the characters Romeo and Juliet as the two protagonists’ die after a letter is not delivered on time in the play.

Emil Caillaux wrote: “The letter, um, it didn’t make it in time.”

Another person said: “Did anybody there actually read the play? The entire point of the last two acts is that the letter is too late. The whole tragedy is a b***** advertisement for texting.”

But one person pointed out that the lovers would not have met their unfortunate demise if they had used a service like the Royal Mail.

Meredith Sargent wrote: “If only Romeo and Juliet had been using the Royal Mail service instead of a friend, things might have ended better!”

In the play, Juliet sends Romeo a letter through a friend explaining that she plans to fake her own death but Romeo never receives the letter and mistakenly believes that his lover has died and proceeds to take his own life.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “We are glad that this postbox has captured the public imagination. In Romeo And Juliet, the letter in question was hand delivered from Friar Lawrence to Friar John. Once in possession of the letter, poor Friar John was quarantined against the plague, so in these circumstances, it seems slightly unfair to blame the postal service!

"The postbox, sited in Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-Upon-Avon, has been specially commissioned to celebrate his birthday. Up for a month, it also references plays including A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night.”