4 May 2025
High concept Shakespeare is all the rage this year. In just the past 3 months I have witnessed Hamlet set aboard an Edwardian ocean-going liner, completely with thrillingly tilting deck stage, and Much Ado About Nothing set in the world of premiership football – both at the RSC – and Jamie Lloyd’s pink-hued Much Ado About Nothing as a rave party set to a pumping score of 1980s club anthems in the West End.
Now Shakespeare’s Globe opens its 2025 season with Romeo and Juliet set in the wild, Wild West with the warring houses of Montagu and Capulet decked out in cowboy boots, gingham dresses and Stetsons. And boy, it works an absolute treat.
The set, if one can call it that, by Paul Wills is a floor-to-ceiling bleach-timbered wall with three sets of saloon doors at ground level and a hayloft high above that I was sure was going to represent Juliet’s famous balcony. But I was wrong, its doors swinging open in the Capulet family banquet scene – here a hoe-down with line dancing – to reveal a blue grass band to huge cheers from the Groundlings.
Two families at war in the lawless frontier town of Verona works surprising well with little need to change Shakespeare’s plotting or twists.
And bang-on-trend, the production rides the current yee-haw pop moment with Romeo, Mercutio and friends attending the Capulet hoe-down in disguise by sporting the trademark bespoke Lone Ranger masks, complete with brothel-door fringe hanging down over the mouth, made famous by gay Canadian singer Orville Peck, whose début album, ‘Pony’, came out earlier this year, and is currently starring as the M.C. in Cabaret on Broadway.
Rawaed Asde – originally cast as Tybult – only stepped up as a last minute replacement for Romeo, but delivers a fine performance full of boyish, impulsive charm. A recent RADA graduate making his professional stage debut, he’s definitely one to watch in the future.
As a no-nonsense tomboyish Juliet, Lola Shalam stomps around with a sour look that would stop any gunslinger never mind young suitor in his tracks, But her harsh exterior melts when she and Romeo are throw together during a two-step dance.
Dharmish Patel camps it up gloriously as Peter, a waspish servant (and doubles as the Prince, here reimagined as the town’s sheriff), but it is Michael Elcock who stole my heart as a peacocking Mercutio, resplendent in a sage green suit, stetson and boots. He commanded the stage whenever he stepped through the saloon doors, adding funny bits of physical business, including humming the theme tune to a famous spaghetti western at one point. A beautiful verse speaker, he knows how to work a crowd and compete with the 21st century noise threat of planes overhead coming in to land – not a problem for actors performing in The Wooden ‘O’ in Shakeapeare’s day!
Sean Holmes has directed a crowd-pleasing production that plays to the venue’s strengths, and that will appeal to a young audience. Romeo and Juliet has set the bar high for the rest of the Globe season. Yee-haw! Its a hit!
