Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare's Globe

There comes a moment in any play on Shakespeare's own stage at the Globe when everyone has to have a song and dance. Even if it's only the bows. This Summer's Romeo and Juliet is no exception. But, at the heart of the dancers, centre stage, there's a problem. Look at Romeo (Adetomiwa Edun), in the middle of the capering, clapping cast. His hand brushes Juliet's, their arms cross each other's shoulders, his young eyes fixed dead ahead, slightly above the heads of his audience. He stamps, he claps, he jumps (not quite so high as the comparatively tiny Juliet (Ellie Kendrick)), he twirls. His limbs are stiff, his expression fixed. Our young lover is just going through the motions of the dance.

Alas, that's true of the youthful courtship throughout most of this production of Shakespeare's most famous love tragedy. While in the first half, Edun and Kendrick capture a tender, quivering adolescent shyness with each other in their first kiss, their post-coital moments is distinctly lacking in physical contact, and they still seem a tad nervous about touching each other –it's a bit late for nerviness by then... Their youthful passions just don't light the stage, and lack the sort of all-consuming fire and desire that's needed for the eventual suicides.

Real grief makes itself known only when the supposedly dead Juliet is carried through the groundlings, and parts of the crowd have to shift to allow her to pass. Suddenly, the groundlings are a part of the sorrow of Verona, having to accommodate the loss of a family so far only watched from a distance. As Penny Laydon's Nurse's red face creases up with tears, a community mourns...despite most of us knowing that Juliet's not dead at all.

Our prior knowledge of some events feels a bit of a hindrance here, as a couple of speeches relate to other characters what we've just seen. Unfortunately, they aren't dramatic enough to make it worth repeating everything we've just seen. The other problem Shakespeare seems to have lumped this cast with is an obsession with the metre of the poetry. While much of this sounds beautiful, there are times when the company needs to allow the text (and themselves!) time to breath, and not rush out all the words as soon as think of them. The dying speech of Mercutio (Philip Cumbus) is especially in need of a little slowing down and consideration; much of its comedy is lost, as in most of his serious-minded performance.

While it's an encouraging – if easy – start to the Globe's Young Hearts Season (what Shakespeare could be a better example of young love?), Romeo and Juliet leaves space for the rest of the season to set the proverbial bar considerably higher.