If Kenny Miller's version of the Louise Welsh novella is to be relied on, it is a wonder that Christopher Marlowe made it as far as his 29th birthday. In a production that anticipates the Jacobean era with a gory, libidinous relish, the playwright finds himself cornered by double-crossing lovers, knife-wielding state officials, rival poets, jealous actors and bar-room spies, so that his every move carries the risk of a brutal death.
That he opts instead for carousing, blasphemy and sex (gender not important) demonstrates a life-force of enviable intensity. Miller's adaptation allows little space to pity Marlowe, but for its brief hour on the stage tells his nightmarish tale with a baroque theatricality.
Welsh's spare, crisp book, published in 2004, is set in a plague-ridden London where Marlowe is forced by the Queen's privy council to answer a charge of libel. If he cannot pin down the real author of the slur, he will be drawn into a Machiavellian plot involving the downfall of Walter Raleigh, with his own life in the balance. In this gothic thriller, the atmosphere of seedy degeneracy is as much a player as the twisting plot.
In a Glasgay/Tron commission, Miller offers a ravishing piece of camp noir, all bare bodies, black skeletons and blood-red petals floating on to a two-level stage. John Kazek as Marlowe and Andrew Clarke as the actor Thomas Blaize are on louche and lascivious form, showing a lust for sex and death worthy of Dr Faustus himself.
At times the adaptation sticks too doggedly to the novel, and the story is too brief to carry much emotional weight, but Miller compensates with considerable theatrical flair. If only as an exercise in style, this is a dark and brooding treat.
· Until Sunday. Box office: 0141-552 4267
