& Juliet @ Shaftesbury Theatre
May 22, 2022
As jukebox musicals go, & Juliet should have had an easy audience in me. Not only does Max Martin’s over-punctuated back catalogue speak pretty precisely to my teenage years (albeit I’ll be whooping for ‘. . . Baby One More Time’ and ‘Oops! . . . I Did it Again’ rather than ‘Roar’), but ‘Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)’ was …
Romeo and Juliet (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse
February 27, 2022
This review is of a preview production, and may not reflect the production as of press night. In January 2022, Brandon Carter became the third artistic director of the American Shakespeare Center, and the first to be a core part of the acting company. As such, while he has already carried several major roles (including a …
Romeo and Juliet (The Handlebards) @ Derby Theatre
September 25, 2021
It’s unusual to see a production of Romeo and Juliet in which Friar John emerges as the MVP. But for The Handlebards, this failed postman has rich potential. At the cell of Friar Laurence (Tom Dixon), Friar John (initially Lucy Green, later Paul Moss) wandered silently, ethereally, with a spray bottle of holy water, watering …
Romeo & Juliet @ Shakespeare’s Globe (livestream)
August 8, 2021
If there’s a play that can benefit from some shaking up, it’s Romeo and Juliet. During the pre-performance materials, members of the cast and crew of the Globe’s current production spoke of challenging the idea that the play is a love story. But cultural understandings of Romeo and Juliet are deeply ingrained, and the play’s …
Romeo and Juliet (National Theatre) @ Sky Arts
April 5, 2021
A group of actors gather in a rehearsal room, chatting and laughing; we cut to them sat in chairs, making up three sides of a large square. It looks like meet-and-greet day, only there’s no director, no box set to show. Instead, it’s one of the actors, Lucian Msamati, who speaks, and he’s speaking the Prologue. …
Romeo and Juliet (National Theatre) @ The Dorfman, London (via Drama Online)
February 19, 2021
The National Theatre’s schools’ productions have developed in enormous sophistication over the last couple of decades, and it’s testament to their success as creative works in their own right that, not only are they getting runs at the National’s south bank base, but that two of them (Romeo and Juliet and The Winter’s Tale, which …
Romeo & Juliet (Metcalfe Gordon Productions)
February 14, 2021
For almost a year, now, there have been few opportunities to see new productions of Shakespeare inside a theatre; fewer still where actors are able to touch, to interact. Metcalfe Gordon Productions’ new theatre-film hybrid production of Romeo and Juliet is an experiment in using technology to reproduce what has been lost, filming the actors (mostly) …
Romeo and Juliet (Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank) @ Shakespeare’s Globe
September 28, 2020
The Globe’s choice to release recordings of its Playing Shakespeare productions for young people alongside several of its summer season productions during lockdown has been an inspired choice. Fast, clear and full of energy, Michael Oakley’s version of Romeo and Juliet – filmed efficiently by Glenn Barton – gets a laugh as the Chorus (spoken …
Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet (New Adventures) @ Sadler’s Wells/Nottingham Broadway
October 23, 2019
Illuminations’ new film of Matthew Bourne’s reimagining of Romeo and Juliet is a thrilling addition to the canon of dance adaptations of the play. Taking the classic Sergei Prokofiev score, but setting the ballet in a near-future ‘Verona Institute’ for the incarceration of young people, Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet is a raw and moving piece that fascinatingly …
Romeo and Juliet (RSC) @ Nottingham Theatre Royal
February 21, 2019
An entirely unexpected fight broke out at the RSC’s Romeo and Juliet last night, and it wasn’t on stage. As several audience members took action to remonstrate with and ultimately eject someone who was expressing their disapproval for the production’s choices, many other audience members found themselves missing the meeting of the lovers. And when …
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