Review Round-Up: ROMEO & JULIET at the Harold Pinter Theatre

Shehrazade Zafar-Arif 1 April, 2026, 12:36

Reviews are coming in for Romeo & Juliet at the Harold Pinter Theatre, and London's theatre critics have been overwhelmingly positive about Olivier Award-winner Robert Icke's (Oedipus, The Doctor) bold, modern, and unique staging of Shakespeare's timeless tragedy about two star-crossed lovers torn apart by their feuding families, though a number of them were less convinced by Icke's use of a 'Sliding Doors' gimmick to play around with the events of the plot. Across the board, however, they all agreed that the cast was phenomenal, and were full of praise for lead stars Sadie Sink (Stranger Things) and Noah Jupe (Hamnet) and their undeniable chemistry.

Sadie Sink in ROMEO & JULIET. Photo by Manuel Harlan.

What are critics saying about Romeo & Juliet

TimeOut

"Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe have stunning chemistry in Robert Icke’s sure to be divisive take on Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy"

★★★★

Reviewer: Andrzej Lukowski

"If Icke and cast capture the enormity of Romeo and Juliet’s love – the most famous fictional couple in history – they don’t romanticise it. Sink is a clever, quick-witted Juliet who talks with a fierce intelligence: obviously she speaks in rarified Shakespearean verse but there is a sense she can speak so beautifully and feel so much because she is so smart. At the same time she petulantly bawls out her Nurse (Clare Perkins) and carries a knife with her that she repeatedly threatens to use on herself when things look like they’re going south. Jupe’s Romeo seems like a lovely guy: bouncy, kind and vivacious."

Read the review here.

WhatsOnStage

"A production full of closely observed detail"

★★★★

Reviewer: Sarah Crompton

Sink is at her best when she’s at her stillest and most earnest, gazing into her lover’s eyes with feverish excitement and determination; Jupe has moments when his boyish exuberance is tempered by a growing wonder. But the chemistry between them seems to dissipate as the mood grows darker. This is partly because the intelligent questions raised by Icke’s approach, slow down the more propulsive elements of Romeo and Juliet’s headlong plunge towards tragedy. The sheer speed of their trajectory is emphasised by a digital clock that appears intermittently to tick down their four days from meeting to death. But their emotional journey feels less freighted.

Read the review here.

The Evening Standard

"Sadie Sink is a magnificent Juliet in a powerful revival"

★★★★

Reviewer: Nick Curtis

"Sadie Sink, the breakout star of Stranger Things who’s already a Broadway veteran at 23, is a magnificent Juliet in Robert Icke’s powerful revival of Shakespeare’s tragedy, physically delicate but with a steely passion. She is matched by Noah Jupe, the young British screen talent making an assured stage debut as an impetuous, boyish Romeo. Rarely has the brutal speed of the play’s events, and its juxtaposition of sudden violence and bombshell love, seemed as clear as it does in Icke’s staging."

Read the review here.

Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe in ROMEO & JULIET. Photo by Manuel Harlan.

The Telegraph

"Sadie Sink is so commanding as Juliet it will make you cry"

★★★★

Reviewer: Claire Alfree

"Yet it’s the lead performances that matter here, most notably Sink in her first Shakespearean role and who is so commanding she makes this Juliet’s story much more than it is Romeo’s. Sink is an actress who seems to live off her nerves, every sinew seemingly a quiver, but she brings a quicksilver intelligence to Juliet, thoughts forming almost more quickly than she can voice them, and leading Jupe’s significantly more naïve-seeming Romeo, rather than the other way round. Moreover, she burns as an adolescent girl in love. Her delirious, incredulous ecstasy after Romeo proposes is so absolutely right it almost made me cry."

Read the review here.

The Independent

"A neurotic Sadie Sink fronts a Romeo and Juliet that will infuriate traditionalists"

★★★★

Reviewer: Alice Saville

"For a play that famously ends with two teenage corpses slumped in the grey obscurity of a crypt, Robert Icke’s take on Romeo and Juliet is outlandishly joyful. Its duo of stars Sadie Sink (Stranger Things) and Noah Jupe (Hamnet) make an unapologetically adolescent pair of lovers, bringing colour to a minimal stage with their larky energy. They might be “born to die” (in the words of both Lord Capulet and Lana Del Rey), but they don’t know it yet – both they and this play feel profoundly alive."

Read the review here.

The Times

"A distracting production from Robert Icke that too often lapses into broad comedy"

★★★

Reviewer: Clive Davis

"Jupe, who won praise for his role in the film of Hamnet, stays in Sink’s shadow as a Romeo who is very much a callow youth. Still, assured though she is, Sink can’t quite redeem a production which is overrun with distracting tics, from that ever-bleeping clock to painful explosions of light that burn their way into your retina. Slab-like sliding doors on Hildegard Bechtler’s austere set trundle back and forth, hinting at paths and decisions left untaken. Icke used similar ploys on a version of the tragedy he directed in 2012. What is oddest about this new vision of warring families is how readily it lurches into broad comedy. For long stretches, it seems as if we’ve stumbled into an entirely new play called Two Geezers of Verona. Kasper Hilton-Hille’s Mercutio can’t stop baring his bottom. We gain precious little sense of a city at war with itself."

Read the review here.

The Guardian

"Overbearing directorial stamp saved by Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe’s chemistry"

★★★

Reviewer: Arifa Akbar

"Icke has proven himself an intelligent interpreter of the classics, most recently in an exquisitely rendered version of Oedipus. He does not hit the devastating pitch perfection of that show here, although there is plenty of invention. Too much so, perhaps. There is a blizzard of directorial flourishes, some of which have been seen before – such as the clock that marks the tragic inevitability of this story projected on to a screen, and beeping its hours and seconds intermittently. It is reminiscent of the clock that counted down the minutes to Sophoclean doom in Oedipus, this time running forward from Sunday night, when Romeo spots Juliet at the Capulets’ ball, to Wednesday night, when they are both found dead in the Capulets’ tomb."

Read the review here.

If you enjoyed Romeo & Juliet and want to experience more of Shakespeare's timeless plays, check out our list of Shakespeare Plays to Watch in London in 2026.

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