STAR-CROSSED LOVERS ALMOST DEFY DESTINY

ROMEO & JULIET ★★★★★

- With STEFAN KYRIAZIS

MAX APPEAL Sadie Sink as Juliet

Finally! A Romeo and Juliet I actually believe rather than roll my eyes at, thanks to US Stranger Things star Sadie Sink and Brit hotshot Noah Jupe, under the inspired direction of Robert Icke.

Usually, no matter how fine the acting or staging, how gorgeous Shakespeare's language, I grit my teeth as hormonal instalove and plot contrivances plunge teens from rival families in Medieval Verona into infatuation on Sunday, marriage and double suicide by Thursday.

Icke's genius is to lean into both issues.

First, he celebrates the ridiculous, glorious, overwhelming delirium of first love, at an age when we are least able to handle it.