‘If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all’ is the phrase that springs to mind when watching the Jamie Lloyd Company’s Romeo & Juliet, which has opened to much fanfare at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre.
The director recently received audience and critical acclaim, along with a record number of Olivier Awards, for Sunset Boulevard which will now transfer to Broadway. Its success was, in part, down to how ‘different’ it was from the original, but when does ‘different’ stop being ‘different’? Presumably, when you do everything the same.
Shakespeare’s most famous love story is given the full Jamie Lloyd treatment here. If you were expecting a balcony, forget it, there’s not even a set. The costumes are the usual monochrome hoodies, t-shirts and vests, and camera operators follow the principal characters around, projecting images on to a big screen.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s pretty much the same as Sunset Boulevard, just without music. That’s not entirely accurate because there are original compositions plus sound design from Ben and Max Ringham, which along with blackouts and the occasional jump scare, turns Romeo & Juliet into something that might have come from a Hitchcock horror.
When Tom Francis sang the title number of Sunset Boulevard outside on the Strand, finishing on the stage of the Savoy, it did feel like a real moment, despite making little sense in the context of the story. So, it’s repeated here, the Strand swapped for the roof of the Duke of York’s, the song replaced by a soliloquy. Does it have the same impact? Sadly not.
Of course, it’s not that Romeo & Juliet isn’t enjoyable, it’s just disappointingly predictable. This production’s biggest strength is its cast; Francesca Amewudah-Rivers portrayal of Juliet is a revelation, even with the heavily stylised portrayal imposed on most of the characters, Amewudah-Rivers gives one of the most moving Shakespearian performances you’ll see on a stage; I was transfixed throughout.
As her Romeo, Tom Holland is absolutely captivating. Holland is more well known for film roles, but has roots on the stage, and that shows in the performance. Holland clearly understands the role, and his flawless and nuanced performance kept the audience hanging on every word.
Freema Agyeman’s portrayal of Nurse is a joy to behold; it’s the most emotive of the performances and Agyeman’s presence on the stage is always welcomed. The same can be said for Daniel Quinn-Toye who makes a sensational professional debut as Paris.
Romeo & Juliet relies heavily on the onstage camera work combined with Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom’s video design, it might be in colour this time but it’s no different to what we’ve seen before…even the text has a familiar font and Pantone to the Sunset branding.
The stars never seem to cross for these two lovers, the text edited by Nima Taleghani feels snappier, but the Bard’s poetic verse is lost in Lloyd’s style – the characters talk (or whisper) to the audience with barely any intonation at all, and the text seems to lose the heart of the story in this determination to be a grittier version of Shakespeare. Romance is replaced with cold disinterest, and tragedy is drowned in gallons of fake blood (perhaps they had ordered too much at the Savoy).
Those coming to Jamie Lloyd’s work for the first time will probably be, at the very least, intrigued by this particular style. But many members of the audience will have paid over £250 for a ticket, and they might question whether it’s worth paying that amount to see so much of what they’ve seen before.
Francesca Amewudah-Rivers and Tom Holland, along with an excellent supporting cast, are what makes this Romeo & Juliet worth seeing, even if it does leave some of us thinking ‘been there, done that, bought the T-shirt’.
