Romeo & Juliet - The Musical

There's no use pretending Romeo and Juliet - The Musical, Don Black's English-language version of the French mega-hit, will be everybody's cup of tea. Whether Shakespeare traditionalists, West Side Story die-hards or Francophobes, this show will always have its detractors in scores. I, for one, don't fall into any of these categories and must admit that, like Juliet's potion, it somehow manages to work a bit of its spell on me.

In addition to some catchy tunes care of French composer Gerard Presgurvic ("Kings of the World", "Ugly and Beautiful", "Verona"), R&J's likeability is helped by probably the best-looking cast currently performing on the West End stage. This sexy young company is full of verve and led most handsomely by Andrew Bevis' plaintive and petite Romeo. Beautifully voiced, Bevis is hard to take your eyes off, unless perhaps you're Juliet.

Though fresh-faced and also vocally impressive, newcomer Lorna Want's leading lady doesn't spark enough sexually with Bevis' Romeo. It doesn't help her viability as a doomed lover that, bizarrely - given, at 15, she's much closer in age to the bard's Juliet - Want seems too immature for the role.

Elsewhere in the cast, there's able support from the likes of Matt Dempsey's Benvolio, Michael Cormick's Prince and Sevan Stephan's Friar Lawrence, and even reality TV star Jane McDonald has her moments. Like the accomplished lounge singer that she is, McDonald belts out her numbers in show-stopping fashion. However, her lack of acting experience is exposed, most seriously in the scene where she's manhandled - with complete lack of emotion on her part - by the Montague youths.

The real problem with David Freeman's production is that it doesn't seem quite able to decide which way to go. A case in point is David Roger's designs. At turns lush (lurid oil paintings with gigantic gilded frame) and then low-budget (movable, unsteady-looking black scaffolding, blinking fairy lights). Ditto his costumes - crushed velvet, Renaissance robes side by side with bell-bottoms and mid-riff t-shirts.

Freeman and Black's updating of the book presents its own worrying set of contradictions. The specifics of Shakespeare's original story, which they stay largely faithful to, simply don't sit well with contemporary dialogue ("a Montague is stuffing your daughter" and so on). West Side Story worked by transplanting the lovers to a 20th-century setting and adapting the details as necessary. Here, it's difficult to take seriously a modern(-ish) Juliet who orders Romeo to run for the priest after a few stolen glances and one kiss.

In the end, its anachronisms like this that present this show's biggest conflict. Does it want to be musical melodrama or musical comedy? I'm sure it considers itself the former but, for my money, there's more mileage in the latter. Rather than be embarrassed by them, I say embrace such cringing clunkers. There's a cult hit in here waiting to get out.

- Terri Paddock