European directors often approach Shakespeare with an entirely fresh eye, unhampered in the way their English counterparts are by too much textual reverence. But while this circus-style production by Icelandic theatre company Vesturport certainly belongs in the theatre rather than the church, it is too much about showmanship and not enough about basic storytelling.
Much of the action takes place high above the stage. Sex and death work exceptionally well here, with Romeo and Juliet's bedroom gymnastics beautifully realised mid-air on a swinging hoop.
The final tragedy is played out in mid-air too, on long skeins of material that deliver death with a heartstopping jerk. Dollops of filmic music ensure that the audience is experiencing all the correct emotions - which is just as well, because while all the swinging around on trapezes and diving boards is exciting (particularly in the fight scenes, where Gotti Sigurdarson makes a devilish Tybalt), there is about as much poetry here as there is in the average greetings card.
The problem is that the production is so in love with itself and its own little kitsch jokes - some good (Paris as a creepy, cheesy 1950s crooner); and some terrible (the live Jesus in Friar Laurence's cell) - that it forgets to tell the story until after the interval. Shakespeare wrote more than enough of Romeo and Juliet without adding lots of entirely unnecessary bits.
It doesn't help that this Romeo and Juliet are not just blinded by love but also bland with it, or that the rest of the cast rush about so hyperactively. I am all for young and iconoclastic approaches to Shakespeare that attempt blow the dust off 400 years of performance, but not when the production dumps on the play - and from such a very great height.
· Until March 5. Box office: 0870 060 6631.
