Romeo and Juliet, The Nuffield, Southampton, touring, review Under the stewardship of Rupert Goold, touring company Headlong has acquired a reputation for being young and funky. Think Enron, think Decade, think Earthquakes in London. Romeo and Juliet, of all Shakespeare's plays, should most easily fit the hipster brief, seeing as how it's about youth getting loved-up in the face of parental prohibition and paying the heaviest price. Unfortunately, Robert Icke's direction seems to be suffering from a nasty attack of Goold-itis. This revival is so hip it hurts, so flash it blinds you - literally so when, for no discernible reason, the auditorium gets repeated blasts of intensely bright light between scenes. If Goold's weakness can be that he wears his ideas on his sleeve, and lets the heart of a play fend for itself, his protege exemplifies that to a fault. Gone is the always-useful chorus prologue ("Two households" etc) and in its place lies a modish framing conceit: a digital display intermittently counts down days, hours and minutes to the tragic denouement in the manner of some would-be tense TV documentary. At certain points, Icke plays alternate versions of events: at the start when Montagues and Capulets spar with each other over the most casual of provocations, he shows the encounter passing without incident, then hits rewind and shows how an accidental scolding from a cigarette-lighter inflames rivalries. Inasmuch as directorial strokes like this, aided by textual nips and tucks, liven things up - and underline themes of chance and fate - the approach "works" but with a play this good, it also feels gimmicky and attention-seeking. Some of the supporting performances lend a commendable authority: Tom Mothersdale brings a rakish, vaunting energy to Mercutio and there's fine, bustling work from Brigid Zengeni as the Nurse. The leads, though, are uneven. Newcomer Daniel Boyd possesses a gangly charm but his febrile approach feels overly raw - and there are times when he throttles the verse with more force than Othello doing in Desdemona. For her part, Catrin Stewart is bright-eyed, forceful, and highly adept at emotional tremulousness but there's little more than a pipette's worth of real chemistry in this romance. Icke adds spice to the first half climax by having the pair romp about on her bed following Tybalt's death to a plaintive cover version of the Boomtown Rats" "I Don't Like Mondays." "Tell me why?," the song repeatedly asks. That's a good question to demand of this well-intentioned but over-muddled effort.