Review: Romeo & Juliet, Northern Ballet, Mayflower Southampton

Love is tricky in Verona – and not just because one falls for the daughter of your dear old dad’s mortal enemy.

It’s the bedding situation which concerns me; the Capulets are a supposedly wealthy family, and yet Juliet naps on stone pedestal about two thirds the size of a traditional single. R&J’s clandestine marriage is consumated surely in extraordinary discomfort.

Not that Dominique Larose and Joseph Taylor in the lead roles seem bothered – the pair have excellent chemistry, lending even more tragedy to their eventual demise. I’ve seen performances in which Romeo and Juliet’s deaths have come as a blessed relief. Not so here, their desire and grief are writ large in some wonderful scenes in the garden and the bedroom.

The biggest curtain-call cheers of the evening are reserved for the comic relief roles of Heather Lehan as the Nurse and Harris Beattie’s Mercutio. Beattie’s tussle with Harry Skoupas’s Tybalt in the square is a riot of impressively choreographed japery which leaves no room for mistake, and Lehan makes the absolute most of her well-written part, tumbling and tottering about the stage in a manner which outshines Miriam Margolyes’ similar turn in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film.

Larose is especially excellent in scenes which require her to dance within herself, trying her best not to appeal to Jackson Dwyer’s sympathetic Paris, and offering a lifeless partner to Taylor when he discovers her apparent corpse.

Plaudits also to Amber Lewis as Lady Capulet who defies the usual no-dancing rule of the elaborately-costumed, whipping her heavy garments effortlessly across the floor in an early scene.

Much has been made of the show lacking a live orchestra (there was a small protest by the Musicians’ Union outside the Mayflower), and I must admit I’d have preferred Sergei Prokofiev’s rousing score delivered fresh and textured from the hands and lips of musicians present.

But this certainly doesn’t detract from the sublime, tightly choreographed show which Northern Ballet have brought here.

Romeo & Juliet as at Southampton Mayflower until tomorrow (Saturday). For tickets, click here.