There’s a back-to-basics vibe about this Peter Evans-directed production for Bell Shakespeare, one that’s markedly different to the staging of Romeo and Juliet he helmed back in 2016.

That one was a bells-and-whistles affair, smartly done and visually rich but weighed down by some meta-theatrical business.

This stripped-back version, staged in the Neilson Nutshell, is far more direct. It delivers plot and text nimbly. Shakespeare’s words do the heavy lifting.

Rose Riley and Jacob Warner in Bell Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Photo © Brett Boardman

Jacob Warner and Rose Riley are our star-crossed lovers for the evening. While very much out of their own teenage years, they are very credible as Romeo and Juliet, who come across as a pair of sheltered millennials.

Warner (who was a very good Benvolio in the 2016 production) brings a very likeable goofiness to the Romeo role – most obvious when he’s attempting to hide from Benvolio (Kyle Morrison) and Mercutio (Blazey Best) by blending into the floor. Riley’s Juliet sparkles with high intelligence, making her choices – including the most terrible ones – the product of a rational adult rather than an impulsive adolescent.

In a production...