The Limit, Royal Opera House, review: Francesca Hayward never takes full flight in this deft and witty two-hander

In The Limit, speech is rationed – but for a dance show, it’s still a novelty to hear dancers’ voices. In The Royal Ballet’s new work, choreographer Kristen McNally and director Ed Madden blend words and movement in a deft, witty staging. It’s starrily cast with dancers Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell, who bring extra glow to physical communication, before and after the words run out.

For The Limit, McNally and Madden worked with playwright Sam Steiner to adapt his award-winning two-hander Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons. A couple find themselves living under a harsh new law that rations speech to just 140 words a day. Weaving together themes of communication, protest and free speech, it’s a portrait of a relationship under the other pressures of insecurities, jealousies, and day-to-day life.

From the beginning, McNally and Madden merge movement and text together. A dance sequence flows through the couple’s first few meetings; under all the hesitations and flirting, the relationship has its own momentum. Midstep, Campbell and Hayward exchange morning-after greetings. For them, it’s a new stage in the relationship, but the dance shows us they’re already flying through it.

In this show, movement suggests connection, while stillness can be a warning sign. Practising rationed speech before the law is enforced, Campbell and Hayward jog side-to-side as they try to find a shared rhythm. But they brace themselves, defensive and still, as they unpick or try to ignore tensions about politics, her distrust of his ex; his insecurity around her job.

Like the dance, Isobel Waller-Bridge’s score winds around the words, a layer of strings and percussion. Voiceovers from newsreaders break in with updates, comically cramped by the sudden shortage of words. Anisha Fields’s set is a bare, raised platform with a tangle of metal looming overhead.

If the show itself has limits, they’re on the movement side. Hayward and Campbell are always engaging, letting themselves be brittle or vulnerable as the arguments rise. But with dance working to illustrate the script, we rarely see them in full flight as dancers. They’re extraordinary talents, poured into a tight frame.

In the most expansive scene, Campbell joyfully uses up his rationed words, singing Bruce Springsteen as he and Hayward leap goofily into dance. Recorded sound morphs back into Waller-Bridge’s score, but you can still see the patterns of the song, giddy and spontaneous. It’s the shared understanding they’ve been reaching for, sitting beyond words or movement.