The Grand Guignol scenes for which John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is justly famous are mercifully played down in director Laurie Sansom’s handsome new production at Northampton’s Royal & Derngate. While the strangling, stabbings and poisoning that characterise of the end of the play — to an almost comic extent — are present and correct, the horror is not stressed. Barely a drop of blood is seen, and the five corpses that usually litter the stage at the close are here replaced by symbolic spotlit daggers.

Sansom’s is a good-looking production, with sets from designer Ruth Sutcliffe that make use of a painting (The Seven Works of Mercy) by Caravaggio. Even more appositely he adds to the mix some of the exquisite vocal music of Carlo Gesualdo, another of Webster’s contemporaries, whose own career (he notoriously butchered his wife and her ducal lover) chillingly parallels aspects of the action in the play.

The music is performed, under Jonathan Peter Kenny’s direction, by a five-strong ensemble — countertenor Jake Arditti outstanding among them — who also double as scene-shifters and incidental characters.

At times their presence can be a little off-putting — as at the wedding bed of the randy Duchess (Charlotte Emmerson) and her initially rather sheepish new ‘husband’ Antonio (Nick Blood), where it looks from their sharp suits as if an entire boy band has arrived to enliven proceedings.

There are moments, too, (though not often) when their vocal efforts drown out the beauties of Webster’s verse. In the enjoyment of this the audience is very well served by this production, thanks to a series of fine performances in the leading roles.

By not dwelling on the element of sexual jealousy that, since Gielgud onwards, has been seen as the prime motive for Ferdinand’s murderous objection to his twin-sister’s secret marriage, Luke Neal convinces us (certainly by the end) that he really is just a bad hat with his eye on the family inheritance. The hypocrisy and startling sangfroid of his no less evil cardinal brother are brilliantly conveyed by Daniel Fredenburgh, while David Caves tellingly presents their mercenary agent of death, Bosola, in all his moral ambiguity.

This compelling production can be seen until October 30. Box office: Tel. 01604 624811 (www.royalandderngate.co.uk).