theguardian
The sad truth is that Romeo and Juliet can often be a bit of a bore. But that’s not an accusation that could be hurled at Nick Bagnall’s production, which is the final play in the first season by the Everyman’s new repertory company. Here, Juliet becomes Julius, which means Romeo’s rejection of Rosaline suddenly makes perfect sense, as Friar Laurence tartly observes: “Thy love did read by rote that could not spell.”
With the cast numbers swelled by members of the Young Everyman Playhouse Company, and a ball scene reborn as a warehouse rave, Bagnall’s production at first zings with youthful energy – although that dissipates in the less successful second half. This tragedy seethes with a suppressed violence that sometimes erupts to volcanic effect. The brawl between Romeo and Tybalt comes to a genuinely shocking conclusion. But why is the fight between Romeo and Paris – reimagined here as a countess with her eye on a younger husband – so bafflingly underpowered?
The entire evening is a mix of near-genius and wide-of-the-mark misses. Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech is quite brilliantly relocated, which brings a chilling sense of foreboding to the lovers’ first meeting. Dean Nolan’s anarchic, genuinely dangerous Mercutio is such a pleasure that you miss him rather too much when he is gone.

There is a fatal lack of passion between George Caple’s stoner Romeo and Elliott Kingsley’s over-protected Julius, and the vagueness of the societal structures leaves the central gay relationship without any real context. It’s clear that we are watching a struggle for control between rival gangland leaders, the Capulets and Montagues. The final, unflinchingly unsentimental image suggests that nothing has been learned by either side from the loss of their children.
But in this brutal world of casual violence, gleeful hedonism, bling and blatant misogyny, why does nobody – least of all Melanie La Barrie’s enjoyably watchable nurse – appear to even blink at this gay relationship that blossoms and is then crushed like the armfuls of flowers brought by mourners to the grave? It’s an aurally and sometimes visually stunning show. But not one that convinces intellectually or leaves you emotionally ravished.
• At Liverpool Everyman until 28 June. Box office: 0151-709 4776.