Romeo & Juliet: 'all very clever, but to what end?'

Tom Holland's superstar appeal helped tickets for "Romeo & Juliet" sell out in less than two hours. But his long-awaited return to the West End, 16 years after his debut in "Billy Elliot", is "no straightforward crowd-pleaser".

The stripped-back visuals and "unconventional staging" favoured by director Jamie Lloyd come at a cost: by eschewing the "giddy melodrama of young love" and instead placing the emphasis on "brooding atmospherics", said Houman Barekat in The New York Times, the muted rendering of romance risks leaving the audience "wanting more". 

Camera operators capture black-and-white close-ups of the actors that are relayed on screen, while live film sequences are broadcast from the theatre's foyer bar, corridors and balcony. Ben and Max Ringham's sound design mixes deep thrumming noises with "snatches of ambient techno", contributing to a creeping sense of dread. 

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"It is all very clever, but to what end?" asked Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. The "turbo-stylised" production seems, at times, like a "deconstructed 'Romeo & Juliet'", that is too "stilted" to unleash the text's passion. When scenes are acted out in a more traditional staging, we the audience "ache" for this to continue.

Still, Francesca Amewudah-Rivers puts on a stellar performance – all the more "heroic" given the barrage of horrific online racist abuse she has been subjected to. The young actress brings her own "spiky charisma" to Juliet and is "perfectly cast". 

The same can't be said for Holland, said Tim Bano in The Independent. His acting skills are strongest when "he's not speaking" as his line delivery falls "a bit flat" and has too much of a "sing-song quality". Ultimately, he's little more than a "very sad boy in a tight white vest". 

Holland "surely had a better Romeo in him than this", agreed Demetrios Matheou in The Hollywood Reporter. But the rest of the cast are outstanding: scenes between Juliet and her father, Capulet (Tomiwa Edun) are "brutal and compelling", and Freema Agyeman is "wonderfully funny" as the nurse. 

Unlike some Shakespeare productions, Lloyd's show is never dull, said Bano. "But this is 'Romeo & Juliet', and 'not boring' isn't enough." More passion is needed to make us care when the lovers eventually die: "love is a many-splendoured thing, not a mutter into the mic."

Duke of York’s Theatre, London WC2. Until 3 August