Meet the Globe theatre's new Romeo and Juliet

For a 25-year-old actor fresh from RADA and an 18-year-old girl (who admittedly gained ecstatic reviews for her remarkable portrayal of Anne Frank earlier this year), this must surely be an intimidating prospect. And yet the only thing this pair seem to be jumpy about is an ensemble song and dance at the end. 'Oh, the jig,' laments Tomiwa, as he is known to his friends, suddenly looking like a down-in-the-mouth lion cub. 'That's the scariest bit.' His Juliet agrees, adding, 'We will have been lying dead for 20 minutes, then we have to stretch and get our dancing feet on.'

They are a rather touching pair: he, all sloping angles and luscious youthfulness; she, bright-eyed, tail wagging, brain almost audibly whirring. They are both intellectually equipped to deal with the verse. Prior to RADA, he did a degree in classics at Cambridge, and in October she will embark on an English degree at the same university.

She has been hanging out around The Lock Tavern in Camden and maybe or maybe not dabbling in romance - she refuses to discuss it - but no work had materialised prior to Juliet, despite her provenance as a child actor who, aged 12, had to cope with playing a child raped by her father in Waking the Dead, and bit parts in Doctors, Prime Suspect and a children's series called In 2 Minds about a girl and a dog who could talk to each other. 'I played the girl. Not the dog,' she says cheerfully.

Tomiwa's parents made a similar decision, sending him, aged ten, from their home in Lagos to Port Regis, a boarding school in Dorset. His father is a Nigerian financier and his mother is half-Ghanaian and half-English. 'So we had connections and family in England,' he says. 'Lagos is brilliant. The heat and the humidity, the bustle and vibrancy - you can taste the air.' Nonetheless, he loved the English countryside, apart from the cold. 'It was great being in the open countryside and able to run around in lush fields,' he says.

He went on to Eton where his parents encouraged him to audition for school plays to combat his extreme shyness. 'I auditioned for everything for two years,' he says. 'I desperately tried to get into plays and failed miserably - no one would have me. It was traumatic to begin with.' Finally he won a part in Murder in the Cathedral and found it to be 'a release for me'.

They're like a pair of puppies, each telling me how much they admire the other, holding hands and snuggling happily for the pictures. It will be sad to see them die at the end of Romeo and Juliet. But don't despair. Minutes later they'll be back on their feet, performing the dreaded jig. ¦

Romeo and Juliet is at Shakespeare's Globe until 23 August 2009 (020 7902 1400)