Too much toil and trouble

There are two extremes of Shakespeare experience. In the first, you're astounded by the sheer modernity of lines written 400 years ago: how, you wonder, could one man know so much. In the second, a bunch of people behave peculiarly to each other while talking funny: how long, you wonder, until the interval.

The large cast from Bristol's Shakespeare At The Tobacco Factory are a talented bunch. But despite the company's ascendant reputation, this is more the second kind of experience.

There is no bad acting, as such. But neither do any of these costumed characters ever truly

come alive as they stalk a bare, slightly clattery thrust stage.

Director Andrew Hilton says he aspires to lightness, speed, flow and clarity in the verse-speaking. All of which is good. But this production lacks the dramatic bottom to offset such nimbleness.

As Macbeth, the bloody nobleman whose vaulting ambition over-reaches itself, Gyuri Samossy makes a very decent Hamlet. His young schemer fails to dominate a space that needs forceful performances to focus the attention.

Samossy's callow Thane sets a lacklustre tone. And those actors who do biff it out in livelier fashion seem anachronistic, as do the jarring screams from Ladies Macbeth and Macduff. The production may grow more assured in its new home. But, on its first night in town, it was toil and trouble not worth taking.

In rep until Oct 23 (next perf Thu), Barbican, Silk Street EC2, 7.30pm,

£15. Tel: 0845 120 7550.

Tube: Barbican/Moorgate