Peter Viney's Blog

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Sean Holmes
Designed by Paul Willis
Music by Grant Olding

Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Thursday 31st July 2025, 14.00

CAST
Rawaed Asde – Romeo
Lola Shalam – Juliet
Marcus Adolphy – Lord Montague / Apothecary
Roman Asde- Benvolio
Calum Callaghan – Tybalt
Lea dés Garets – Lady Capulet
Michael Elcock- Mercutio
Josh Gordon – Sampson / cover
Colm Gormley- Lord Capulet
Niamh James – Abram / cover
John Lightbody- Friar Lawrence
Jamie-Rose Monk- nurse
David Olaniregun – Gregory, cover
Dharmesh Patel- Prince / Peter
Joe Reynolds- Paris

MUSIC
Richie Hart – double bass / tuba / piano
Polly Bolton – banjo / mamdolon / autoharp
Charlie Laffer- MD / resonator guitar
Saleem Raman – percussion
Isreal (Ola) Akindipe – tenor sax / clarinet / bass clarinet

Romeo & Juliet can take high concept, from West Side story via Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 gangs and gas stations film or Kenneth Branagh’s Cinema Paradiso Italian setting. Often it’s simply modern dress. So this is the Wild West version. I wondered how far they would go in creating two opposing sides. Would it be like the Hatfield- McCoy West Virginia feuding hillbillies, or the range war cattlemen v sheep herders (as in the Netflix series 1923), or the town facing a gang like The Magnificent Seven?

None of the above. There’s a Western backdrop, Western costumes, sometimes guns as well as knives, and some excellent Western music and dancing. That’s it. No American accents, wisely. Even for experienced Shakespearean actors, adding an American accent would be an issue, then extrapolate to a large cast. And yes, I know that many words indicate that Shakespeare’s pronunciation survived in America, but not in Britain. So it’s British accents here. Estuary for Juliet, Northern Ireland for Lord Capulet and a touch of Welsh for Paris. Colm Gormley just does one line in a comic Western drawl.

There’s another thing. Last week we saw the RSC The Winter’s Tale with no comedy. Now we have Romeo & Juliet with no tragedy (at least in the first part, Acts 1-3). It is played for comedy and it works.

Michael Elcock’s Mercutio has become a major comedy role, interacting with the audience, doing great physical stuff, being kissed from the audience, singing, drawing out LURVE in Barry White / Teddy Pendergrass / Isaac Hayes style, though that has become an Afro-Caribbean actor cliché, as it’s around the fourth time I’ve seen it. It always works.

He’s dressed like a river boat gambler. Interestingly, his death at the end of the first part, then also signals the production changing gear.

I had wondered why a highly experienced actor like Darmesh Patel had the relatively lowly castings of Prince and Peter, the messenger. First, The Prince has a sheriff’s badge, and needs a powerful presence when he intervenes to stop the street brawl. A gunshot helps.

Then Peter has now became a major and enlarged comic turn and brilliantly so. The arm covers suggest a telegraph office clerk.

The major innovation though is Lola Shalam as Juliet. The programme makes much of her being age thirteen, and she plays it as a sullen teenager with an Estuary accent and a blank-the-world expression. She is a natural comedy actor too. The balcony scene started with the balcony being pulled through the audience on a high wheeled platform. She called ‘Romeo!’ like a fishwife. Then mid scene she clambers down the steps to leave, gets past the bottom step, changes her mind and climbs back up. The balcony scene managed to be funny without descending into a piss-take. I foresee major comedy roles to come.

Rawaed Asde as Romeo then has to interact with Mercutio, The Nurse and Juliet, getting the task of being straight man to all three comic turns. Note the clothes contrast. Romeo is young cowboy, Mercutio is older, more worldly-wise. Roman Asde is Benvolio. I assume they’re brothers. They look as if they are which enhances the Montague family grouping.

Yet in spite of the comedy, they did get the “Aah!’ factor going with the lovers. It was early teen romance.

Jamie Rose-Monk is a high pitched full on hilarious nurse, and John Lightbody as Friar Lawrence manages to get humour in too as the travelling preacher with gun belt. I was wondering at this point. The RSC’s high concept ‘Footballers & WAGs’ Much Ado About Nothing wasn’t averse to changing ‘Prince’ to ‘Guv’nor’. Here, I might have changed Prince to Sheriff and Friar to Minister or Reverend.

Keeping with the Western theme, I might have gone for using an Elmer Gantry / revivalist / snake oil salesman routine, but then I’d been reading on the train Percival Everett’s James, a rethought Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s viewpoint and you get that in the story.

The Capulet party is a square dance with bluegrass and they all get to sing Sail Away Ladies with its chorus ‘Don’t you rock’em die-ey-oh.’

Calum Callaghan is a suitably tough Tybalt, the violence of the fight sets up for a change of pace and style.

The question was how do they take all the comedy into the second part? They succeed in shifting the mood. Mercutio is dead. The illiterate messenger has less to do (though his heartfelt Come on! when handed another list to read was very funny). They play the Juliet / Nurse / Lady Capulet scenes pretty much in full too. It’s long for the play with fewer cuts than recent versions, and yet Lady Montague has been eliminated altogether. Colm Gormley as Lord Capulet gives his full on fury at his disobedient daughter and that was funny.

The long-haired frilly-shirted Paris from Joe Reynolds has the added bonus of a bootlace tie and a Welsh accent. As I point out so often, Shakespeare had a good comic Welsh actor in his company and from then on, Welsh is often used to add humour.

Juliet’s bed, before she takes the potion, also gets pushed through the crowd to meet the stage front. We discover why the three chairs are along the set rear. When she is in her tomb, she, Mercutio, Tybalt, the dead, walk on and take their places in the chairs. They are seated. Then there is a stately solemn dance of death which takes us through the aspects of the scene. They only hit the floor when Romeo died. The live music is superb at this point, lifting the scene unobtrusively.

Then there were the pigeons. Two of them circling. In one scene, the actor (I think it was John Lightbody) took a pause, and watched one go round, so it became a portent. Very good on the spot thinking. However, with Romeo and Juliet prostrate on the floor, one landed on the stage and proceeded to waddle around them. That got a few titters at the wrong point. We were all waiting to see if it would peck a recumbent actor. Coming out a man said, ‘Wow! How do they train those pigeons!’ (No, he didn’t. I made that up.)

It’s a crowd pleaser. It’s pitched perfectly for the Globe in summer. It had enormous applause. I have a jaded palette with the play. I’ve seen it often enough, and there is usually a dulling sense of inevitably as we struggle to the conclusion. It didn’t happen here. The eerie dancing lifted the play and my interest level. I enjoyed it greatly.

Four star
****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
Four star
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian ****
Fiona Mountford, The Telegraph ****
Tom Wicker, The Stage ****
What’s On Stage ****
Sarah Hemming, Financial Times ****
London Theatre ****
Nick Wayne, West End Best Friend ****
Phoebe Taplin, The Reviews Hub ****

three star
Nick Curtis, The Standard ***
Isobel Lewis, Time Out ***
Veronica Lee, Daily Mail ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

ROMEO & JULIET
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
Romeo & Juliet, TV film, NT 2021
Romeo & Juliet, Brownsea Open Air Theatre, 2023
Romeo & Juliet Globe 2025

SEAN HOLMES
Much Ado About Nothing, Globe 2024
The Comedy of Errors, Globe 2023
The Winter’s Tale – Wanamaker & Globe 2023
Twelfth Night, Globe 2021 & broadcast
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Filter 2011

JAMIE ROSE-MONK
The Taming of The Shrew. Globe 2024
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Bridge, 2019 (Snug)
Princess Essex, Globe 2024

MICHAEL ELCOCK
The Comedy of Errors, Globe 2023

COLM GORMLEY
Much Ado About Nothing, Globe 2024
The Winter’s Tale – Wanamaker & Globe 2023
The Winter’s Tale, RSC 2021 
The Taming of The Shrew, Globe 2016
The Country Girls, Chichester Minerva Theatre 2017

CALUM CALLAGHAN
Much Ado About Nothing, Globe 2024
Macbeth, Globe 2023

DHARMESH PATEL
Much Ado About Nothing, Globe 2024
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Wanamaker 2018 (Berowne)
The Captive Queen, Wanamaker 2018
Titus Andronicus, RSC 2017
Julius Caesar, RSC 2017
Antony & Cleopatra, RSC 2017
Cymbeline, Wanamaker Playhouse 2015 (Soothsayer, Philario)
The Tempest, Wanamaker Playhouse 2015 (Ferdinand)
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Wanamaker Playhouse 2016 (Proteus)

JOHN LIGHTBODY
Much Ado About Nothing, Globe 2024
The Winter’s Tale – Wanamaker & Globe 2023