Romeo and Juliet – Union Theatre, London.

Writer: William Shakespeare (adapted by Michael Wicherek and Oneness Sankara)

Director: Hal Chambers

Box Clever Productions stages a one-hour race through the plot of Romeo and Juliet, with three actors – a Romeo, a Juliet, and Jack Reilly being everyone else, with a wide variety of accents and the help of audience members (some of whom may be friends of the company). He also, and it’s his main job, narrates. For this is not just a brisk and breezy highlights reel, but a serious attempt to critique the play, to question whether it is indeed a love story for the ages. They are young teens, or in Juliet’s case nearly a teen. They hook up at a Sunday night party, on Monday they’re in love, on Tuesday they’re married, on Wednesday they’re dead. None of this, the adaptation suggests, is sensible. Or even sane.

It’s a telling analysis, but it isn’t solemn. There’s wit in abundance in the commentary. Romeo, played by Justice Ezi, walks the fine line between being a Jack-the-Lad street urchin and a very confused kid and displays a winning line of cuteness. Mimi Martin takes Juliet down a more serious and darker path; her horror and disgust when she wakes up in the Capulet charnel house is particularly well drawn.

It’s a verbally rich re-telling of the tale, but the most impressive aspect is the movement of all three actors. On a simple set, a walkway slanted down the centre of the auditorium, they leap and swing, stamp and pose, slide over and under the structure like a collection of ferrets. Always in motion, always lithe and elegant, they make their barebones production a pure pleasure. It isn’t choreographed, but the actors move like dancers.

It’s brisk, funny, pretty to watch, and does a good, thought-provoking job of textual analysis that is always on point and never too serious. The run at the Union Theatre is very brief, but the company seems to be on tour to schools almost constantly. Box Clever develops projects with schools, and Romeo and Juliet is one of three on-the-go

Runs until 21 May 2024