It’s always a disquieting sign when a production of Romeo and Juliet plays fast and loose with the balcony scene.

Admittedly, the First Quarto makes no mention of said structure, but the text is clear about a window, Juliet at it, and Romeo looking up.

In Neil Bartlett’s workaday revisiting of fair Verona, Anneika Rose’s Juliet bounces about on a bed while David Dawson as Romeo stands a couple of metres away and does complicated things with his eyes to imply some sort of middle distance. This confused image niftily encapsulates a show that isn’t working as it should.

It certainly looks slick enough, with its sharp costumes inspired by early Fellini films. A clever touch has dark-clad young men, harbingers of the doom to come, lurk in the shadows between scenes brandishing flick-knives. Yet never do we feel caught up in a runaway maelstrom of passion hurtling into tragedy.

Dawson captures Romeo’s febrile anguish nicely but his performance lacks shading and variety of tone. Rose misguidedly gives her Juliet a default setting of stroppy sulkiness; it’s unclear from this why Romeo wouldn’t stick with Rosaline. None of the ­supporting cast makes a strong ­impression, which means the nearly three-and-a-half-hour running time hangs very heavily.

The RSC can — and indeed have, with a glorious recent slate of comedy and tragedy — do much better than this.
In rep until 24 January (0844 800 1110, www.rsc.org.uk).