One challenge that faces any director of Shakespeare’s The Tempest is the huge number of interpretations already produced. From outer space to outer London there are few settings left untried, few characters unexplored. This new version from MB Productions, directed by Asia Osborne, comes up with two intriguing solutions to the problem of familiarity, in an attempt to make the play fresh again.

The Tempest is set on a kind of enchanted island and trades on the relationship between the magician-ruler Prospero, and Ariel a fairy who serves him. This production splits Ariel up, with five actors speaking the part, sometimes individually and sometimes as a kind of chorus. When this device works it does so brilliantly, and in particular the physical possibilities are acrobatically explored. However, too often it fails, as when the actors playing Ariel speak together lines are either lost or inaudible. The other innovation is to invert the Ferdinand and Miranda love story and turn it into something dark and threatening. Ferdinand, played by the excellent Ed Chalk, starts off a slightly bumbling figure, before becoming increasingly predatory as he realises he can exploit her innocence. This culminates in what we assume is a rape, as he exploits her body just as her father has exploited the island.

There are also some excellent individual performances, and Jacob Lloyd as Prospero exudes authority. Jonathan Head and Christopher Thursten as Trinculo and Stephano also get big laughs in the sub-plot of bumbling drunken antics.

The quest for novelty is both a strength and weakness here. The physical theatre of the multiple Ariels is thrilling, but it comes at the cost of losing Shakespeare’s dynamic language. The threatening reading of the central love story works well though, and is aided by some good characterisation. This is an uneven and sometimes frustratingly faulty production, but is also, for all that, courageous, sometimes provocative and in places excellently acted.