A candle brings light to the dark secrets of a king and his daughter, and so begins the odyssey of Pericles, a man whose misfortunes are so great - he loses his beautiful young wife to the cruel sea and his baby daughter, Marina, to cruel friends - that he has rather more right than King Lear to rail against fate. The gods, however, are only playing. In the end, as you would expect in a fairytale - and this is a world where the good are rewarded and the bad end up with punishments that make it seem as if Snow White's wicked stepmother got off lightly with her red hot shoes - there are only happily ever afters. The lost are found and grief and suffering are transformed into joy, in what you imagine must have been Shakespeare's dry run for The Winter's Tale.
Rarely performed (this is only the third time I've seen it), Pericles seems fresh-minted in Andrew Hilton's production, which for the most part is played on a bare stage with the actors robed in Vicki Cowan-Ostersen's exquisite flowing costumes that seem to take their rich hues from the sea itself. In previous Tobacco Factory productions Hilton has proved himself one of the great tellers of Shakespeare, and his narrative skills are displayed to brilliant advantage here in a play whose episodic structure could be emotionally unsatisfying. Hilton keeps you involved right up to the final touching meeting of father and daughter. It would be even more moving if poor Nathan Rimell, who has a very good shot at Pericles (one of Shakespeare's more passive and wooden heroes), wasn't wearing such a ridiculous false beard.
That's the only false touch in an imaginative production that delights in the twists of a plot that include capture by pirates and the selling of Marina into a brothel, where she keeps men at bay with her goodness. All this goodness could make the moppet hard to take, but Catherine Hamilton gives her a wistful, heart-catching spontaneity. An enjoyable evening bursting with life and the sweet and sour of all humanity.
· Until March 19. Box office: 0117-902 0344.
