If it’s an indisputably elegant Romeo and Juliet you want, this stylish setting is just the thing. The grandeur of Middle Temple Hall, all carved wood and imposing portraits, beautifully conveys the pomp of fair Verona, where two families do daily, deathly battle under the weight of history. Jenny Tiramani’s all-white costumes are a treat, too: the slick young men in blazers and knee-length shorts seem to have stepped off the pages of Vogue Uomo.

But there’s a niggling feeling that Romeo (Santiago Cabrera, from TV series Heroes) is being out-acted first by his diamanté hatband then by the pierrot costume in which he attends the fateful ball that introduces him to his forbidden love. When he learns Juliet (Juliet Rylance) is a Capulet, he plumbs the very shallows of emotion. The pair fail to capture the full flights of Shakespeare’s soaring poetry, with the balcony scene a rushed, missed opportunity.

Rylance, with her little-girl party frock and sandals, makes an appealingly fresh-faced heroine. Initially, she seems too assured for her tender years, a well-spoken, reliable head girl who might just whip up a lacrosse team at the next scene change. It is all to her credit that she grows thrillingly into the part as the plot assumes its momentum. She gives a marvellous sense of a young woman forced to grow up so very swiftly and when she is betrayed in quick succession by all those closest to her, we feel strangely proud of the strength she shows in such adversity.

Elsewhere in Tamara Harvey’s peppy production, there’s nice work from dancer-turned-actor Will Kemp as Mercutio, a strutting fellow who looks as if he would have got more excited about Juliet than her beau manages.

Occasionally, the acoustics of this long traverse playing area prove tricky; the Nurse (Ann Mitchell) negotiates a particularly difficult bit of pacing in clacking high heels. Not the love story to end all others then, but pleasingly easy on the eye.

Until 13 September (0845 120 7543).