The Dark Side of Love

The Brazilian performer and director Renato Rocha coached the stunning young actors in Fernando Meirelles's 2002 film 'City of God'. This likeable contribution to Lift 2012 sees Rocha working with teenagers from London and his home country to create a promenade Shakespeare mash-up that's short on coherence, but performed with undeniable energy and talent.

Beginning with an atmospheric circuit of the Roundhouse's cellar, where freakish loners babble and chew withered balloons, we move through a series of uneven set-pieces that bring together scraps of 'Othello' and 'Romeo and Juliet' to meditate on the agony and the ecstasy of love.

There's some barnstorming Kate Tempest-style performance poetry, and the cast handle the Shakespeare with conviction. But there are too many ideas here, and many of them flounder.

Emo to the core, 'The Dark Side of Love' has a clichéd visual language of gas masks and bloody dress shirts where its heart should be. But it does have exuberance and ambition, and its young collaborators are easy to admire.