Review Round-Ups

Does Branagh's Romeo and Juliet impress?

The latest show in the Kenneth Branagh season opened at the Garrick Theatre on Wednesday

Daisy Bowie-Sell, WhatsOnStage

★★★

"Jacobi is infinitely watchable in a humorous, delicate way. The only problem with having him onstage is that he highlights how a lot of the cast struggle with the verse. Next to Jacobi, Richard Madden's Romeo is limp and disinteresting."

"Lily James as Juliet is much better, bringing an enjoyable amount of quirky hutzpah to the role. At one point she practically downs a bottle of champagne (not bad for a girl who is not yet 14) and she imbues her speeches with vigour and passion. Meera Syal is funny as Nurse, but again, when she speaks the verse it sounds oddly clunky"

"The show rushes through the 'two hours' traffic', steaming ahead without looking back. But this Romeo and Juliet works best when it lingers, and really in this cast it is only in Jacobi's all too fleeting moments that the play is brought vividly to life."

Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph

★★★

"Co-directors Branagh and Rob Ashford set the scene nicely enough: we’re transported to a fair Verona that owes much to La Dolce Vita. A monumental piazza – courtesy of designer Christopher Oram – greets the eye: imposing marble pillars, walls and steps, a warm Italianate light pouring in; during the interval, church bells ring out."

"Madden’s hero is maddeningly ordinary. He qualifies as an alpha Romeo in appearance, tanned in his white shirt, with T-shirt beneath, and black jeans (later on, a suit and tie). But where’s the hormonal passion, the angst, the volatility – and, more importantly, a way with the verse that answers its soaring poetry? Like a dutiful batsman, he keeps hitting the lines with a polite, dull thud without scoring any sixes."

"Step forth James… she delivers the Shakespearean goods, as alluring in her nightie as a latterday Sophia Loren, even if she could afford to lose some of her bosom-heaving, eyelash-fluttering tremulousness. She copes gamely with a bizarre, interpolated jazz-song and an underwhelming balcony scene that places her barely off the ground at all. She possesses the right, credible mixture of infatuation and impulsiveness and, later on, dread as she sups the friar’s potion. She makes, nay saves, the night."

Holly Williams, The Independent

★★★

"Madden, best known as Robb Stark in Game of Thrones, has hot-headed eagerness and swagger but not much subtlety, brashly bashing out his lines."

"James, as in most of her roles from Nina in The Seagull to Natasha in War and Peace, has an immensely watchable, winning quality, a mix of guileless, passionate optimism and limb-twisting, teenage awkwardness. It's a perfect blend for Juliet, although as the tragedy charges towards its inevitable end, her lines blur as she tremulously brims over (and over)."

"Michael Rouse as Juliet’s father gives a performance that would blister paint off the walls. His rash insistence that Juliet marries Paris may grow from grief, a loss of control for a man used to exerting it, but it spirals rapidly; the moment when, bending his daughter to his will he ends up straddling her, is skin-crawling."

Michael Billington, The Guardian

★★★★

"We are plunged into a vividly imagined 1950s Italy of dark-suited men, petticoated women, bicycling friars, patriarchal oppression and frantic partying. You feel Fellini is due any moment to film it with a movie camera and, even if the result has its oddities, the production certainly has a pulsating energy."

"The big draw is the casting of Lily James and Richard Madden, who played opposite each other in the Branagh movie of Cinderella, as the doomed lovers. They acquit themselves very well: they have youth, looks and passion on their side."

"The whole thing is done with a speed and vigour that ensures we are never bored; and if I generally preferred the first half to the second, that is because Shakespeare’s tragedy itself depends too much on chance and the faulty Italian postal service."

Quentin Letts, Daily Mail

★★★★★

"Sir Kenneth Branagh directs Shakespeare with a seriousness and opulence not much seen in British theatre at present. And in luminous Lily James – Lady Rose in Downton Abbey – he has found the perfect Juliet."

"Here is Romeo And Juliet not as some gloom-laden tragedy from the start but as a pacy depiction of a prosperous, exciting town. Sir Derek's Mercutio does a little boogie with himself."

"Juliet's soliloquy ('I wish night would come'), contemplating the loss of her virginity, proves beyond doubt that Miss James is star material. She has the beauty of a Keira Knightley but buckets more stage ability and charm. Bravo."


Romeo and Juliet runs at the Garrick Theatre until 13 August.