Amazingly sloppy: Romeo & Juliet, at Duke of York’s Theatre, reviewed

Romeo & Juliet is Shakespeare with power cuts. The lighting in Jamie Lloyd’s cheerless production keeps shutting down, perhaps deliberately. The show stars Tom Holland (also known as Spider-Man) whose home in Verona resembles a sound studio that’s just been burgled. There’s nothing in it apart from a few microphones on metal stands. He and his mates, all dressed in hoodies and black jeans, deliver their lines without feeling or energy as if recording the text for an audiobook. Some of them appear to misunderstand the verse.

When not muttering their lines they stare accusingly into the middle distance, like catwalk models. Then a power cut strikes. This indicates a swordfight, apparently, and it goes like this. The yelping characters are busy trading insults and daring their opponents to ‘draw’ their swords (even though no one carries a weapon). Then the theatre is plunged into darkness. A tense silence follows. Then the lights spring back on and several of the swordsmen are sporting dollops of jam across their tummies. And they’re screaming like babies. Not convincing.

An overhead screen is used to project chunks of the play that have been pre-recorded in the theatre’s scruffy backstage areas. There’s a speech on a roof, a bit of dialogue in a dingy corridor and a soliloquy up a fire-escape. The director hasn’t bothered to adjust the lighting so these scenes look like raw footage from a war zone. Very lazy. Or very thrifty, perhaps.

No money was spent on sets, props, make-up or wigs. Mercutio, played by Joshua-Alexander Williams, styles his hair in fist-sized bunches that look like Mickey Mouse ears. Michael Balogun (Friar Laurence) is completely bald, which draws attention to the radio mike plastered against his skin. In close-up video shots, a flap of Sellotape is visible dangling from his cheek.