Sand falls like rain from an hourglass in the sky and a small pyjama-clad boy plays with his wooden dolls, screwing up his eyes against the terrors of the night. Edward Hall's production of Shakespeare's play for the all-male company Propellor is framed as a nightmare of family disintegration experienced by the doomed young prince, Mamillius, and it made me shiver with pleasure. It is full of originality, yet it is always in the service of this late romance with its entwining mix of death and rebirth.
Leontes' court is frosted with ice and thick with the smug smell of cigars and brandy. But something is rotten in Sicilia. Through Mamillius's appalled eyes we see the cracks as the raging Leontes takes against his wife, who he mistakenly believes has been unfaithful with Polixenes. Jealousy strikes here like a hot flush in a cold white light. It is swiftly followed by madness - the madness of men who cut themselves off emotionally from their wives and children.
In many ways, Hall's production can be read as a critique of bad fathering, with the behaviour of Leontes and Polixenes in sharp contrast to that of the old Shepherd who discovers and brings up the lost princess, Perdita. At the end, Mamillius recoils from his father as if he has had a nightmarish vision of the man he may become and rejects it. If there is any redemption here, it is a ghostly one.
There are many innovative touches in this beautifully acted evening, from the triple casting of Mamillius as Time and Perdita to a Paulina who is not the serene wise woman of tradition but a spitfire who will never let Leontes forget what he has done. The Bohemia scenes are giddy fun, with troublesome sheep and the roguish Autolycus played as a naff, ageing rocker. Even "Exit, pursued by a bear" gets a new twist. Roars of approval all round.
· Until March 19. Box office: 01635 46044. Then touring.
