Romeo & Juliet reviews starring Sadie Sink & Noah Jupe – The critics’ verdict

"Trigger warning: This Romeo and Juliet is actually brilliant"

"The only thing this production needs to alert you to is that Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink is so commanding as Juliet it will make you cry"

"... Icke’s production undeniably plays to its youthful star-dusted cast, yet it also has a near metaphysical preoccupation with the vagaries of time that lends this most callow of stories a rare gravitas."

"Icke aficionados will recognise many of the director’s ticks – the digital clock that intermittently counts down the play’s inexorable five-day time frame.... Yet it’s the lead performances that matter here, most notably Sink in her first Shakespearean role and who is so commanding she makes this Juliet’s story much more than it is Romeo’s."

"... the pace is claustrophobically, at times even exquisitely slow."

"It’s a richly rewarding evening"

"Her delirious, incredulous ecstasy after Romeo proposes is so absolutely right it almost made me cry."

"Icke repeatedly alerts the audience to the plot’s fateful reliance on chance, here replaying the odd key scene with different split-second timings"

"Sadie Sink is a magnificent Juliet in a powerful revival"

"Robert Icke’s production with Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe has clarity, speed and dazzling touches"

"Sadie Sink... is a magnificent Juliet in Robert Icke’s powerful revival of Shakespeare’s tragedy, physically delicate but with a steely passion."

"She is matched by Noah Jupe, the young British screen talent making an assured stage debut as an impetuous, boyish Romeo. Rarely has the brutal speed of the play’s events, and its juxtaposition of sudden violence and bombshell love, seemed as clear as it does in Icke’s staging."

"There is a strong, sexual vibe from the start, particularly around the more forthright and forward Juliet."

"... the alchemical casting of Sink and Jupe smacks slightly more of the way Jamie Lloyd, this generation’s other great reinventor of classics, uses celebrity to leverage bold and radical productions."

"Flash, dazzle and hype are as important to London theatre as the deep understanding of Shakespearean text which Icke, Sink and Jupe so clearly show."

"There is a clever conceit at the end which I won’t spoil. But I will tell you it showcases Sink and Jupe as consummate stage actors as well as hot young stars."

"Sadie Sink is brilliantly neurotic in a production that will infuriate Shakespeare traditionalists"

"The ‘Stranger Things’ star shines opposite Noah Jupe in Robert Icke’s bold new staging at the Harold Pinter Theatre"

"For a play that famously ends with two teenage corpses slumped in the grey obscurity of a crypt, Robert Icke's take on Romeo and Juliet is outlandishly joyful... They might be “born to die” (in the words of both Lord Capulet and Lana Del Rey) but they don't know it yet – both they and this play feel profoundly alive."

"Icke has built this production with the same tools he's used to construct his formidable reputation.... Still, this play feels softer, more romantic than Icke at the terrifying height of his powers."

"Icke first staged Romeo and Juliet in 2012, and this production has the unabashed confidence that comes with a second visit. He returns to the idea of exploring alternative realities and expands it"

"This is a richly emotional, brilliantly intelligent take on a classic – one that'll plunge a knife into your heart so skilfully that you hardly notice the pain."

"Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe have stunning chemistry in Robert Icke’s sure to be divisive take on Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy"

"It has what one might call Sliding Doors scenes... At best I think they’re a pretty effective way of countering the fact that the bleak end of Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy is only arrived at by a series of mind-boggling coincidences and mishaps."

"However, these interventions are clearly extraneous... and he totally overplays his hand in a final scene that teeters on the mawkish."

"The Stranger Things star is good. She’s very good. And indeed, one of the reasons the parallel universe stuff feels extraneous is that Icke’s entire cast is so spectacular – and so thoughtfully realised"

"The party scene, in which Sink’s gawky Juliet and Noah Jupe’s puppyish Romeo set eyes on each other for the first time, is electric... their chemistry is extraordinary and their love feels real, but almost more than their minds can handle."

"If Icke and cast capture the enormity of Romeo and Juliet’s love... they don’t romanticise them. Sink is a clever, quick-witted Juliet who talks with a fierce intelligence"

"Perkins is terrific as the Nurse, channelling whole episodes’ worth of EastEnders in her loud, tough-as-nails-but-with-a-heart-of-gold turn. But when was the last time you saw a really great Capulet Snr? Marvel star Clark Gregg is genuinely superb in the role"

"Toss in a gorgeous, drone-heavy electronic score from Giles Thomas and of course you have something special"

"But much as I am a fan, I can’t help but think there’s a parallel universe out there where he didn’t try the Sliding Doors thing (or reined it in a bit) and that that led to an all-timer Romeo & Juliet."

"Sadie Sink is luminous in a raging Romeo & Juliet"

"The ‘Stranger Things’ star, playing opposite Noah Jupe, is the beating heart of Robert Icke’s production at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre"

"Everyone is wired, tired and starved of sleep. Icke makes this a keynote of his pulsating, febrile production."

"Sink is luminous as Juliet — raw, funny, smart, and so alive she can barely contain herself."

"Jupe’s Romeo, awkward and unsure, seeks advice from the audience and delivers poetic flourishes as if trying them on for size. Both are poleaxed by overwhelming desire: it feels achingly truthful."

"It’s a production charged with adolescent passion and buzzing with fresh insights. Icke overplays his hand on occasion, but he brings a raging, compassionate eye to this awful tale of wasted life."

"Sharp new spin on the familiar tale"

"Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe are poignant in Robert Icke’s sliding-doors take on Shakespeare’s tragedy"

"This production by Robert Icke, who returns to a play he previously directed to acclaim in 2012, is crammed with tantalising sliding-doors moments"

"The performances within this slick tragic machine are often striking, if somewhat uneven. Sink is brittle, staccato, highly strung and tremulous with awakening sensuality"

"Jupe’s Romeo, meanwhile, is in love with love, with a charm and generosity that could certainly make him a teenage dream, combined with a boyish impetuosity"

"As the action grows increasingly nightmarish, Icke’s production ratchets up its compulsion, giving the play an enhanced urgency and liberating its well-worn plot from romantic cliché"

"Spoiler alert. The star cross’d lovers still die at the end. But Robert Icke’s production of Shakespeare’s tale of woe, starring Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe, does everything it can to keep the suspense going."

"... Icke creates a sequence of sliding door moments, marked by blinding flashes of light, that actually show an alternate version of the play. They aren’t always the obvious ones"

"... both Sink (of Stranger Things fame) and Jupe (making his stage debut after his appearance in Hamnet) perfectly capture their youthful excitement"

"Later, as the mood darkens, they are perhaps a little too histrionic, skating on the surface of the words, and losing the clarity that both exhibit in the earlier stages."

"This is partly because the intelligent questions raised by Icke’s approach, slow down the more propulsive elements of Romeo and Juliet’s headlong plunge towards tragedy."

"It is never less than interesting, but whereas in his productions of Hamlet and Oedipus, Icke’s analytical mind added to the tragedy, here it sometimes pulls against it."

"Clare Perkins is magnificent as the Nurse, bustling and full of self-importance, but also of wisdom and warmth."

"If it isn’t quite up there with Icke’s best, that’s only because he has set the bar so high."

"Overbearing directorial stamp saved by Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe’s chemistry"

"Young stars perfectly encapsulate the uncompromising nature of first love in Robert Icke’s production"

"Icke has proven himself an intelligent interpreter of the classics, most recently in an exquisitely rendered version of Oedipus. He does not hit the devastating pitch perfection of that show here, although there is plenty of invention. Too much so, perhaps. There is a blizzard of directorial flourishes, some of which have been seen before"

"It strains under the weight of directorial overthinking, although some eliding of scenes work well"

"What makes the production effective, ultimately, in spite of the overbearing directorial stamp, are the two central performances... She is so strong a presence that Juliet at times seems the play’s central protagonist."

"They have a sweet, pure chemistry that encapsulates the urgent and uncompromising nature of first love"

"There is a storming turn by Clare Perkins who makes a brilliantly cocky cockney nurse"

"The fateful foreshadowing is amped up to full-on horror tropes by Icke... It is Shakespeare turned into West End melodrama. Thank god for the celebrity castings, which saves it from itself."

"Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe do their doomed best"

"Robert Icke’s production at the Harold Pinter Theatre too often lapses into broad comedy. Its leads would surely prosper with another director"

"What is clear from this evening at an uncomfortably warm Harold Pinter Theatre is that Sink, star of the fantasy TV series Stranger Things, possesses genuine stage presence."

"Jupe, who won praise for his role in the film of Hamnet, stays in Sink’s shadow as a Romeo who is very much a callow youth."

"... assured though she is, Sink can’t quite redeem a production which is overrun with distracting tics, from that ever-bleeping clock to painful explosions of light that burn their way into your retina."

"There is a self-consciously lumpen quality to the delivery of many of the subsidiary figures. Thankfully, Clare Perkins brings heft to the part of the nurse."

"The other good news is that the climactic scenes in the tomb are cleverly reworked. As the lovers’ lives slip away, we have a glimpse of the alternatives that might have unfolded."

"Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe Lead an Angsty, Time-Bending Adaptation That Builds to a Real Gut-Punch"

"From the start, it’s clear that this “Romeo & Juliet” will be different."

"Perhaps it’s because we just saw him as Hamlet in Chloé Zhao’s Oscar-nominated “Hamnet,” but Shakespeare’s words roll off Jupe’s tongue like a second language — he was born for this."

"... a delightful Clare Perkins"

"Sink and Jupe’s chemistry is palpable, and their first kiss is slow and sweet, with Sink’s face blushing a blazing red."

"Fortunately, the play’s second act packs a gut-punch that almost makes one forget about the discordant way the first ended. As the drama and urgency of the situation ramps up, Sink begins to really shine."

"Sadie Sink, Noah Jupe and the Wonder of Young Love"

"The sincerity of the play’s two stars shines through in Robert Icke’s new London production."

"The staging feels gimmicky, but this “Romeo and Juliet,” which runs through June 20 at the Harold Pinter Theater, is redeemed by winning performances in the title roles."

"The “Stranger Things” star Sadie Sink, who recently wowed Broadway in “John Proctor is the Villain,” plays Juliet with a brittle grace that feels true to the roiling passions of adolescence."

"Naturally boyish in his features, Jupe’s Romeo evinces an endearingly doe-eyed, callow goodness."

"Sink and Jupe’s emotional sincerity isn’t shared by the rest of the cast, though, some of whom seem to be performing in a student revue."

"... everything good about Icke’s “Romeo and Juliet” is bound up in sincerity and sentiment"