After 16 years away from the stage, mostly playing Spider-Man, Tom Holland makes an amazing return to live theatre as a complex, muscular Romeo in Jamie Lloyd’s latest stripped-back, massively buzzworthy reinvention of a classic. Holland is matched by Francesca Amewudah-Rivers as a fiercely still and sardonic Juliet.
Their shared triumph in a sold-out show is the best revenge on cowardly online racists who criticised their pairing. Holland’s Romeo starts off boyish and ends up flinty and bruised. Amewudah-Rivers’s Juliet is smarter and more serious than him and he knows it. They’re the most spellbinding star-crossed lovers I’ve seen in years.
