There are moments in this heavy-handed production of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus when I would gladly have sold my soul to any passing devil just to make it all stop. These came during botched attempts to translate the play's issues into a modern-day framework.
You know you are in trouble early on, when the branches of traditional learning - Law, Medicine, Divinity and Logic - are represented by actors wearing Kylie-esque gold hot pants for no apparent reason. Later, instead of Faustus talking to angels, he is treated to repeated counsel from moustached men from the 118118 adverts. Rather than visiting the Pope, Faust attends a G8 summit in Rome with Bono taking the Papal role, George W Bush also in attendance, and other world leaders represented by comedy heads on sticks. Oh yes, and Faustus and Mephastophilis have travelled there on Queasyjet. All of this is reminiscent of a mediocre school play with a microscopic budget.
None of the changes illuminate; instead, they muddy and diminish the play. But beyond these ill-founded gestures, there are some quietly heavenly moments, too, mostly clustered around the performances of Claire Price as John Faustus and Ayesha Dharker as Mephastophilis. Casting two women in these roles works so well that you quickly forget that this is unusual, and welcome the subtlety that both bring to a production that craves it.
Price, as Faustus, captures his early intellectual restlessness and a real sense of spiritual anguish in the closing scenes. In her clear and impassioned rendition of the doomed doctor, she demonstrates how you enthral an audience without needing gimmicks. Dharker slinks about being generally mischievous, but the closing image of her finally claiming the soul of Faustus, and then entirely absorbing him, is genuinely chilling.
The set design, too, when it isn't being too tricksy and clumsily up-to-date, is compellingly suggestive of the play's two worlds. A giant round screen functions as the border between reality and possibility, life and what might await us - a mirror and a dreadful, hellish pool for Faustus to gaze into, once his soul is bartered. This, and a strong performance from the company, are what redeems a production which, like its protagonist, is overly ambitious and perilously wrong-headed.
· Until November 25. Box office: 0117-987 7877
