Dark side of revenge

No more adventurous or valuable delving into the half-forgotten storehouse of dramas by Shakespeare's best contemporaries has been made in decades. Thanks to producer Bill Kenwright and the cost-cutting flair of Thelma Holt, Gregory Doran's fascinating season of theatrical rarities by the likes of John Marston, Philip Massinger and John Fletcher has arrived from Stratford's Swan. The Royal Shakespeare Company itself was shamefully unable to fund the transfer of these plays, unseen in the West End for centuries.

Dominic Cooke's clever, though unnecessary, updating of John Marston's revenge satire, The Malcontent, to a 1970s South American dictatorship arrives in a far more vigorous, vivid condition than it was in Stratford this summer. Marston, scourge of James I's court, where the sexually corrupt and amoral, flatterers and career social-climbers jostled for position, disguised his attack by transferring its location to Genoa.

The atmosphere, with Joe Dixon's superb, Machiavellian Mendoza in military uniform and Zapata moustache, white-gloved and blackhearted, trying to murder his way to the top by way of the Duke of Genoa's faithless wife, Aurelia, is suitably reminiscent of a rickety regime. The goose-stepping processions of soldiery, carnival atmosphere, with a pillared balcony beneath which wild crowds applaud the latest leader, a jazzy dance-of-death masque and two ladies in waiting with their heads down for a sort of double-act fellatio, all powerfully contribute to the mood of decadence, intrigue and danger. The labyrinthine plot steers a precarious line between black comedy and angry revenge drama. But Cooke, avoids the farcical Goon show slap-stick that disfigured Jonathan Miller's 1973 production. The laughter aroused is nervous and dark.

As Mendoza, Dixon, the production's impressive star, exudes all the steely, nonchalant calm of the psychopath. He radiates a heartfelt insincerity and cool, gleeful malice as he sets two Dukes to murder each other.

But Antony Sher plays the usurped Duke Altofronto, returned to court in disguise as a licensed, foul-mouthed jester, Malevole, with an alien, pantomimic crudity. In lank, long hair and stained T-shirt, with stooping, crab-like walk and nasal voice, Sir Antony renders Malevole's serious anger gross. He whips off his wig to reveal the real Duke and quavers in artificial self-pity. It's Claire Benedict as a conniving court bawd, Amanda Drew's voluptuous, but tormented Duchess and Geoffrey Freshwater's court buffoon who, Dixon apart, best catch the right tone for this weirdly enthralling drama.

Booking to 25 January. Box office: 0870 890 1105.

The Malcontent