Review Roundup: What Did the Critics Make of LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS, Starring Jenna Coleman and Aidan Turner?

You’re going to speak more than 123 million words in your lifetime. What will you do when they run out?

Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, a rom-com about a couple living under a law that restricts words to 140 a day, is now open.

Starring Jenna Coleman and Aidan Turner, the play is directed by Josie Rourke. So what did the critics think?

Aliya Al-Hassan, BroadwayWorld.com: The actors lack tangible chemistry, but both hold their own with convincing characterisations. Lemons forces the audience to contemplate the horror of a wordless life, but outstays its welcome. The intrigue of the concept is unexplored; it remains an idea, not a fully-formed conclusion.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: Coleman and Turner are endearing together, although they remain cutesy for too long, repeating riffs on their first meeting in a pet cemetery. The script repeats its ideas on protest too but has deft scenes that show how words can conceal and also how apparent banalities can carry value and meaning. There is good use of silence as the couple hit the buffers of wordlessness, and their relationship gathers power when the actors drop their romcom routine and become more real and tender, albeit rather late in the day.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: On Robert Jones' clever set, with objects illuminated in the walls (lighting by Aideen Malone), they spar and dance and declare their love and anger. Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster's supple choreography and Rourke's direction move them fluently through the short scenes; one moment they are sitting in a crouch, the next seamlessly sprawled on the floor. They circle each other, weighing their next utterance. By the close, they simply sit, beginning to realise that compression can sometimes mean truth.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: Coleman is cold and brittle as lawyer Bernadette, who is insecure and irritated that her musician boyfriend takes a dim view of her profession and seeks out the company of his more political friends, including his ex. And Olivier – while admirably socially engaged – is just a bit of a self-absorbed prick. We never really get to enjoy their relationship at any point: it’s always tense. Not that the play is one note, and it’s fascinating how the pair change after the hush law is enforced: before they probably yakked away too much, endlessly dancing around their actual feelings; after they’re stressed and miserable, unhappy with their brutally limited means of expressing themselves.

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard: The script is expertly crafted and sometimes incisive. Steiner doesn’t beat any particular drum, but the central concept strikes chords in contemporary politics, both in recent attempts to limit the right to protest or to strike here, and in more authoritarian regimes overseas.

Dominic Maxwell, The Times: This is a play of ideas, so Steiner won’t waste words on showing how this unlikely new edict is upheld by the authorities. Bernadette and Oliver thriftily cut out pronouns and definite articles to stay within the daily total, turn “I love you” into “loveoo”. Worse, a singsong of Total Eclipse of the Heart trails off when he runs out of words before she does. Every now and then they fall apart.