The best revenge is success. So news that Jamie Lloyd’s staging of Romeo & Juliet with Tom Holland has apparently secured a Broadway transfer before it’s even opened in London feels like a victory. Last week the show’s producers were compelled to issue a statement deploring the “barrage of deplorable racist abuse” levelled online at Holland’s co-star Francesca Amewudah-Rivers by mostly American trolls.
It’s disgusting that black artists, and those from other frequently-targeted groups, still have to deal with vile aggression from cowardly keyboard warriors trying vainly to roll back progress. Amewudah-Rivers is a composer and musician as well as an actor who I’ve seen give splendid performances. I hope her successive West End and Broadway debuts as Juliet win her all the awards.
