🎭 Review: Romeo a Juliet at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff
From the valleys to the Globe, Theatr Cymru’s Romeo a Juliet is a love letter to language, legacy and the lyrical power of bilingual storytelling. Opening its Welsh tour at Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre before heading to London’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, this production doesn’t just reimagine Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, it reclaims it, with a distinctly Welsh heartbeat.
Directed by Steffan Donnelly, Artistic Director of Theatr Cymru and Associate Artist at Shakespeare’s Globe, this bilingual staging interlaces Shakespeare’s original English with J.T. Jones’s acclaimed Welsh translation. The result? A rich, resonant tapestry that feels both timeless and thrillingly contemporary. The Montagues and Capulets are no longer just warring families, they become metaphors for linguistic and cultural division, with Romeo and Juliet caught in the crossfire of identity, heritage and belonging.
“This is bilingual theatre at its boldest”
Steffan Cennydd and Isabella Colby Browne lead the cast with youthful intensity and aching vulnerability, their chemistry sparking across languages. Cennydd’s Romeo is all restless charm and poetic yearning, while Browne’s Juliet is fierce, funny and heartbreakingly tender. The ensemble, a blend of emerging and established Welsh talent, bring texture and urgency to the world around them, with standout turns from Eiry Thomas and Jonathan Nefydd adding gravitas and grit.
Elin Steele’s set and costume design evokes a world both grounded and dreamlike, a liminal space where past and present collide. Dyfan Jones’s score pulses beneath the action, underscoring moments of intimacy and violence with haunting precision. And with bilingual open captions, BSL interpretation, and Welsh-language audio description, Theatr Cymru ensures that accessibility is woven into the very fabric of the experience, not an afterthought, but a proud principle.
“Romeo a Juliet is a love letter to language”
This production marks the first time the Welsh language will be heard on stage at Shakespeare’s Globe, a milestone that feels long overdue. As Donnelly notes, most of the world speaks more than one language, and this Romeo a Juliet embraces that complexity with grace and fire. It’s a celebration of dual identity, of cultural nuance, and of the radical joy that comes from hearing your own tongue in a story you thought belonged elsewhere.
For Welsh audiences, it’s a moment of recognition. For English-speaking audiences, it’s an invitation. And for all of us, it’s a reminder that Shakespeare (like love❤️) speaks many languages.
Catch it in The Sherman Theatre Cardiff before it heads east. This is bilingual theatre at its boldest, and it deserves to be shouted about, in Welsh, in English, and in every tongue that dares to dream.
