This production ran from 13 January - 5 February 2000, according to Theatre Record.

"Watching productions as amateurish, stilted and messy as United Spirits Theatre's, it is hard not to feel that young companies ought to cut their teeth on someone other than Shakespeare. Texts as familiar as Romeo and Juliet deserve fresh, inspired treatment; director Martin Scott Gilmore works hard to be unusual, introducing elements of traditional Japanese theatre, using swirling Eastern music and employing a multi-cultural cast, but his theatrical vision remains half-baked and unpersuasive. Noriko Sakura's neatly choreographed reinterpretation of Noh and Kabuki movement is interesting but carries little weight...Most criminally, the actors exude little passion and rarely seem to engage with each other; many pronounce their lines roundly as if reading from an invisible script....Attempts to fill the space with servants engaged in household tasks are annoyingly fussy and worse: the maintained presence of a lowly maid in the scene when Lady Capulet dismisses the nurse unconstructively contradicts the text, while having the nurse carry her broom offstage directly after discovering Juliet's faked death is downright farcical. The white cotton walls and pale beige steps of Annabel Hill's austere set accentuate the emptiness; the blank canvas woud have been a gift to most lighting designers, but Peter Harrison ignores the opportunities, limiting himself to a basic, insipid palette."  ~ Maddy Costa, Time Out, 19 January 2000, in Theatre Record, 1 - 28 January 2000.

"Mujahid Kumal Khan's Romeo is handsome, personably and totally convincing as a hopelessly romantic dreamer. But he loses his way as the tragedy unfolds and the language and emotions deepen. His smaller, more detailed work is much more focussed in Act I than in the later tragic scenes."  ~ James Charles, What's On, 19 January 2000, in Theatre Record, 1 - 28 January 2000

"Watching productions as amateurish, stilted and messy as United Spirits Theatre's, it is hard not to feel that young companies ought to cut their teeth on someone other than Shakespeare. Texts as familiar as Romeo and Juliet deserve fresh, inspired treatment; director Martin Scott Gilmore works hard to be unusual, introducing elements of traditional Japanese theatre, using swirling Eastern music and employing a multi-cultural cast, but his theatrical vision remains half-baked and unpersuasive. Noriko Sakura's neatly choreographed reinterpretation of Noh and Kabuki movement is interesting but carries little weight...Most criminally, the actors exude little passion and rarely seem to engage with each other; many pronounce their lines roundly as if reading from an invisible script....Attempts to fill the space with servants engaged in household tasks are annoyingly fussy and worse: the maintained presence of a lowly maid in the scene when Lady Capulet dismisses the nurse unconstructively contradicts the text, while having the nurse carry her broom offstage directly after discovering Juliet's faked death is downright farcical. The white cotton walls and pale beige steps of Annabel Hill's austere set accentuate the emptiness; the blank canvas woud have been a gift to most lighting designers, but Peter Harrison ignores the opportunities, limiting himself to a basic, insipid palette."  ~ Maddy Costa, Time Out, 19 January 2000, in Theatre Record, 1 - 28 January 2000

"Martin Scott Gilmore's Romeo and Juliet is a bold but star-crossed attempt on Shakespeare's most excellent and lamentable tragedy. On the one hand he has laudably sought to stage a multi-cultural experience integrating different global theatrical influences and casting racial mixes across the board - not just in the central Montague-Capulet feud....However, the production travesties many of the characters, shows little understanding of the poetry and moves along like a kangarooing car. Many of the characterisations are merely ham, but many more are simply unworthy of trained actors. Much of the text is garbled as though written in a foreign language and as the show wears on, it provokes unintended sniggers - even in the emotionally climactic death scenes....Ruth D'Silva brings a willowy beauty to her plucky Juliet, but the handsome Mujahid Kahn can only complement her with a likeably gauche Romeo."  ~ Patrick Marmion, Evening Standard, "Star-crossed tale of woe", 14 January 2000

"Instead of creating Alma-Tadema ladies in apricot yearning for their lords, time could have been spent teaching the company to speak verse. The young men's samurai pants look ridiculous. The feel for time passing is non-existent."  ~ Jeremy Kingston, The Times, 18 January 2000, in Theatre Record, 1 - 28 January 2000.