Troilus and Cressida at Shakespeare's Globe

Who knew Shakespeare could be so homo-erotic?

It's probably because he's writing about the Greek army camping around the ancient city of Troy – and back then the Greeks had a bit of a reputation for all that man-on-man stuff. Mind, it's perhaps a reputation they've picked up in more recent times, rather than one they had at the time; these days we find the Greek system of male mentoring a bit odd. A system open to corruption and paedophilia, one that allows older men privileged access to young boys.

Special access is exactly what Matthew Kelly's unashamedly camp Pandarus has to Paul Stocker's cherubic Troilus at Shakespeare's Globe. Okay, they're doomed Trojans, not Greeks, but the same ideals seem to be in place – in fact these supposed foes meet often and seem to have a great deal in common, which just goes to show the futility of this war fought over willing abductee Helen. Pandarus arranges for Troilus to marry Cressida – a woman rather fancied in both camps, even by the effeminate, Russell Brand-style Achilles (Trystan Gravelle) – who is his niece. What's alarming about Kelly's patronage here is that – when told Cressida must be handed over to the Greeks in exchange for a captured Trojan noble – his fears are for Troilus, not his own niece. She's liable to be raped and kept as a slave, a woman loved by a prince of Troy, and her uncle cares more that his protege will be upset to lose his lover.

But then, in such a patriarchal society with male mentoring (called pedastry, fact fans), maybe the surprise ought to be that Troilus fancies a girl in the first place. Even the Greek ladyboys Achilles and Patroclus are rather taken with her, which seems to run against Shakespeare's decidedly un-Homeric description of Patroclus as Achilles' 'masculine whore'.

Shakespeare makes Achilles bisexual, rather than a heterosexual man with a male protege (as the Greeks would have seen him), a move extended by the Globe in their boisterously Boy's Own production. I say Boy's Own because the few women are either gorgeously sensual and hot for a man or are silly girls that can be easily ignored, while the hard, tough men go around bragging, shouting and bashing each other with sharp things.

Shakespeare's other departure from Homer's original Iliad is to move the focus away from Achilles, indeed away from anyone. The death of Patroclus is skimped over, like many of the revealing costumes, and most of the deaths you might expect from the (literally) legendary Trojan War simply don't happen.

Which just goes to show that these men are all talk and no trousers (ahem). Their fights aren't even as good as the ones in the Globe's Romeo and Juliet! Still, it does let Shakespeare have lots of brawny men clapping each other repeatedly on the muscles.

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.