Peter Viney's Blog

Romeo & Juliet
by William Shakespeare

An original film for TV
National Theatre film, Sky Arts, 4 April 2021

Directed by Simon Goodwin
Designer Soutra Gilmour
Adapter / Associate Director Emily Burns
Music by Michael Bruce

CAST
Josh O’Connor – Romeo
Jessie Buckley- Juliet
Tamsin Grieg- Lady Capulet
Lucien Msamati- Friar Laurence
Deborah Findley- Nurse
Alex Mugnaioni – Count Paris
Shubham Sharif- Benvolio
Fisayo Akinade- Mercutio
David Judge – Tybalt
Adrian Lester- The Prince
Lloyd Hutchinson – Lord Capulet
Colin Tierney- Lord Montague
Ella Dacres – Peta
Ellis Howard – Sampson

UK PREMIERE 4 April
REPEATED MONDAY 5th April 9.30 pm, THURSDAY 8 APRIL 10 pm
PBS in the USA on 23rd April 2021

This is a film, not a National Theatre live streaming. It was filmed in the pandemic over seventeen days using the empty theatre space of The National Theatre. All of it, rehearsal rooms, stages. When Romeo is banished to Mantua it’s behind the huge steel door used for loading sets in. It’s deliberately in that theatrical space, and starts with the cast on chairs in a semi-circle, as if for a first reading. There are a couple of sets, notably a suburban drawing room for Lady and Lord Capulet, but mainly it’s bare walls and close ups.

It’s only ninety minutes long. Reviewers have called it ‘streamlined,’ ‘a distillation’ and ‘pared-down.’ A less kind description would be ‘heavily-abridged.’ No one in the cast had any problem learning the long speeches for this one, because there aren’t any. One of the longest is Juliet’s balcony scene, and as Karen points out, any female who’s been to drama school should know this one by heart. I was the series editor for an ELT graded reader of Romeo & Juliet at Low Intermediate level running to just over 3,500 words, and I reckon we got as much of the story in.

Having said that wise decisions were made for a prime time Easter Sunday TV slot. It’s mainly tight close ups to highly atmospheric music. As such, it’s dreamlike, intoxicating. Beautifully filmed too. There are significant wordless sections there, and no one felt obliged to squeeze in more text. The softly conversational delivery is entrancing.

My cast list is not in the NT (National Theatre)’s strict alphabetical order but indicates the importance of the role in this version, and rarely has a Mercutio been so far down such a list. In fact though we get modern music at the party and the obligatory fights, the characters of the “gangs” are greatly diminished.

The big change is handing most of Lord Capulet’s strict unbending character and lines to Lady Capulet, a given once you’d recruited Tamsin Greig for the role. She was Malvolio in Simon Godwin’s Twelfth Night at The National.

Then Lucian Msamati’s Friar Laurence hoovers up the prologue, messengers and apothecary into his role and that works well. The nurse only gets humour in the first scene, and we missed seeing more of her. The fighting lads lose virtually all their speeches. Mercutio and Benvolio get a gay kiss before Tybalt arrives.That’s now the third time I’ve seen Mercutio snogging a male (or fancying Romeo madly), and it smacks of tick box inclusiveness to keep shoehorning it in. It’s no longer a surprise. We also get a naked post-wedding scene in bed, again a given in film rather than stage.

As you would expect, Josh O’Connor as Romeo (best-known as Prince Charles in The Crown) and Jesse Buckley (recently a great support to René Zellweger in Judy) are marvellous as the lovers. We first saw Jesse Buckley as Katharine of France to Jude Laws Henry V, but that was a full eight years ago. She is a perfect Juliet in so many ways, but she doesn’t exude “too young to know. In fact she is 32, Josh O’Connor is 31. These are adults falling in love. It’s an issue in that the younger you go in the actors the stronger the story is. I would say overall that this version loses the angst of teenage as a result, which is why I’d go for four stars rather than the Guardian’s fulsome five stars.

The music is Max Richter standard … my greatest praise.

We watched it again on Easter Monday … we had recorded it on Sky Q while watching on Freeview on the Sunday, but as ever it was “Recording failed” which is why we have cancelled our Sky subscription. So, noting that, we just watched the whole again broadcast on Freeview on the second day. It was even better.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID:

(Weird … it’s fourteen months since I last typed that heading in a review!)

Arif Akbar, The Guardian *****
Commercially, the scale and resource of this venture can hardly serve as a blueprint for other theatres to follow, but artistically it is just exquisite. If this is a first venture into a pandemic-resistant revenue stream for the National, it sets the bar high.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph *****
The paciest, raciest Romeo & Juliet in decades.

Nick Curtis, The Evening Standard ****
It ’s very intimate. That yearningly passionate speech is captured under the curve of Buckley’s armpit as Juliet presses her lonely forehead to the bed. The camera dwells often on the raw emotion of her face and the nuanced feelings that chase across O’Connor’s melancholy, guarded features. The love scene is decorous, the deaths achingly real. The distillation of the script enables subsidiary characters to shine more brightly than usual. Adrian Lester brings gravitas to the Prince’s brief, expository appearances. Deborah Findlay is a subtly aggrieved but pragmatic Nurse, while Tamsin Greig’s icy Lady Capulet melts into liquid sorrow at the end.

Fiona Mountford, The i, ****
This is, without a doubt, Buckley’s show and reminds us, as if we needed it, of what a big name she is going to be. She is superlative as an emotionally-wise-beyond-her-years Juliet, gently Irish-accented, sensitive, impassioned and with every passing feeling scudding over her face. With the help of television’s close-ups she conveys a painful awareness of how utterly let down Juliet is by her elders when she most requires their support; rarely has her line “I needs must act alone” resonated more strongly.

OTHER PRODUCTIONS OF ROMEO & JULIET REVIEWED ON IS BLOG:

• Romeo & Juliet, Headlong 2012, Nuffield, Southampton
• Romeo & Juliet 2014 – Box Clever
• Romeo & Juliet 2015 – Globe Touring Production
• Romeo & Juliet – Tobacco Factory, 2015, at Winchester Theatre Royal
• Romeo and Juliet – Branagh Company, 2016
• Romeo & Juliet, Globe 2017
• Romeo & Juliet, RSC 2018

OTHER REVIEWS ON THIS BLOG

SIMON GODWIN, Director
Timon of Athens, RSC 2018
Twelfth Night, National Theatre 2017
Hamlet, RSC 2016
Richard II, The Globe 2015
Two Gentlemen of Verona, RSC, 2014
The Beaux Stratagem, National Theatre, 2015
Man & Superman, National Theatre, 2014
Candida, Theatre Royal, Bath, 2013

TAMSIN GREIG
Twelfth Night, National Theatre 2017
Women on The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown, Playhouse, London, 2015

JESSE BUCKLEY
Henry V, Michael Grandage Season, 2013

JOSH O’CONNOR
The Shoemaker’s Holiday, Dekker, RSC, 2015

LUCIAN MSAMATI
Othello – RSC 2015    (Iago)
Comedy of Errors NT 2012 (Dromio of Syracuse)
Amadeus National Theatre

DEBORAH FINDLAY
Timon of Athens, National Theatre, 2012

ADRIAN LESTER
Othello, National Theatre 2013 (Othello)