Romeo & Juliet – Courtyard Theatre

My last brush with Romeo and Juliet was at Wilton’s Music Hall 3 years ago for Rachel Garnet’s excellent Starcrossed, which focussed on the fractious relationship between Mercutio and Tybalt, but added an erotic queer twist to their violent passions. It was an audacious, yet clever spin on Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy and a prime example of the Romeo and Juliet Industrial Complex. From Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 blockbusting film (Romeo + Juliet) to Arthur Laurents’ musical, West Side Story, audiences are highly familiar with twists, takes and remixes of the most pop play from in the Bard’s canon.

Adding another layer to this theatrical mille-feuille is Romeo and Juliet: Out of Pocket, devised by Argentinian playwright Emiliano Dionisi and directed by Alonso Íñiguez. This boldly inventive show mixes slapstick, metatheatre, and performative academia to create a 2-handed jaunt that swings between utterly ridiculous to surprisingly poignant. The cast, UK’s Felicity Ison and Mexico’s Eduardo Zucchi play two rival Shakespeare scholars who are forced to co-deliver a lecture on Romeo and Juliet. They have differing perspectives on the text, but ultimately, they are equally passionate and are united in their levels of expertise. Like the Montagues and Capulets, this duo has more in common than they’d like to admit.

In a fit of competitive pique, the pair perform a breakneck romp through the play using nothing but domestic accessories found on a cleaners’ trolley. A mop-head becomes a farcical wig to play Juliet’s nurse, and a toilet brush holder doubles as a scatological cup for poison. It’s hugely silly, but the preposterous props are leavened with undeniable skills with the text. Not only do Zucchi and Ison gallop through the range of characters, imbuing each with sharp definition, they made the text sing and soar with an ease befitting of the RSC’s best. With any production of Shakespeare, that dexterity, confidence and love of the language is more important than dramatic ability or physical appearance. It’s simple, give those words life, or go home. Way too many fall at this inescapable hurdle.

Dionisi has penned a theatrical concept that wisely assumes the audience is au fait with the play, it’s themes and cultural context. My 19-year-old nephew, who recently studied the text at school, was entertained and happy with the intellectual rigour at the core of this show. At just over an hour, it was the perfect length, like a witty stand-up routine for Shakespeare stans, romantics and fans of South American surrealism.

Reviewer: Stewart Who?

Reviewed: 2nd August 2025
North West End UK Rating: