The Macbeths, it has been suggested, were victims of a vicious smear campaign and were actually the kind of nice young couple that you would happily invite around for a Sunday roast. There is something of that in Finbar Lynch's likable thane and Lucy Wybrow's Sloaney young matron. They are an ordinary couple, whose misfortune is that they are given the opportunity to advance themselves by murder - and take it. The rest is blood, guilt and madness.
Already the speediest of Shakespeare's plays, coming in at around two hours when it is played straight through, this version pares the play right down to 80 minutes and a cast of four. This should give added speed and intimacy, but James Phillips's production is never as fleet, claustrophobic or downright scary as you imagine it strives to be. Those unfamiliar with the play might find the doubling of parts by the cast of three women and one man confusing. Why has Duncan had a sex change?
Phillips lumbers himself with a door motif: Macbeth steps through the door of the guest room and kills Duncan and, in so doing, steps through a door into a darker, more menacing world. This is fine in theory, but proves cumbersome as it is realised in David Farley's design. The door keeps getting in the way of both the actors, and the audience's view.
Good things include a trio of particularly creepy witches, who, like a gang of immoral kids, set in motion a deadly train of events as if they do not know the difference between good and evil. At the end, they poke the dead Macbeth as if puzzled to discover that he is really dead. Finbar Lynch imbues Macbeth with decency, suggesting that he might have made different choices.
But the evening's acting honours belong to Rebecca Johnson - fast becoming one of our most essential young Shakespearean actors - who tackles Banquo, Lady Macduff and First Witch with such assurance and utter conviction that you wonder why Phillips didn't go the whole hog and turn Macbeth into a one-woman show.
· Until February 22. Box office: 0114-249 6000.
