Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory has become a yearly treat and a guarantee of no-frills, high-quality productions in an intimate setting. This year's season begins with a production that has all of director Andrew Hilton's hallmark virtues: grace, simplicity and clarity. Even if you are coming to a play for the very first time, a Hilton production ensures that you will never need a synopsis. Unlike many directors of Shakespeare, he never forgets that first and foremost he is telling a story.
Played in Edwardian costume on an almost bare hessian-covered stage, and using just the odd chair, bench or table to set the scene, the production takes us straight into the heart of the Sicilian Court. But never quite into the mistrustful heart of the king, Leontes (John Mackay), whose jealous rage at his queen's affection for his best friend, Polixenes, leads him to destroy marriage and happiness.
Hilton begins the evening with the pure, cracked beauty of a young boy singing - presumably Leontes's young, doomed son. It is a moment that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. But little in the rest of the evening - not even the final restoration of mother and child, one of the most affecting scenes in Shakespeare - has that kind of emotional impact.
In part this may come from Hilton's own sensibility. His productions suggest a man who wants our feelings to be authentic. He is eager to avoid the overblown, the easy, lush emotion. He gambles that the ultimate payoff will be all the greater if he holds back, and in John Mackay - such a terrific Angelo in last year's Measure For Measure - he has an actor for whom less means more. Except that here it is actually too little. How can the redemption of the final scene have real meaning if we are unaware of the magnitude of what has been lost?
As ever at this venue, the supporting roles are fully realised, and the evening is always sharply intelligent. But The Winter's Tale is a play I want to feel, not just think.
· Until March 16. Box office: 0117-902 0344.
