Conscious perhaps of accusations that his first season as artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company is distinctly Shakespeare-lite, Gregory Doran has been anxious to present The Orphan of Zhao as “the Chinese Hamlet”.

Well, up to a point . . . It does concern a bloody struggle for power at the heart of a factional court and, more to the point, features a young man out for revenge on a cruel tyrant responsible for the death of his father and his entire family.

Aside from that, though, it is hard to see much to justify the comparison, with the orphan’s eventual worsting of his enemy accomplished with a vigour and determination notoriously lacking in the Prince of Denmark.

That this 2,500-year-old Chinese story is a gripping one cannot be denied, one reason presumably why it has appealed in the past to translators such as Goethe and Voltaire. The RSC’s new version is from the Oxford-based writer James Fenton. With language both courtly and, when necessary, colloquial, his script propels the drama with commendable despatch.

The story gets off to a cracking start with badhat courtier Tu’an Gu — the strapping Joe Dixon — encouraging the vices of a weak and self-indulgent emperor (Stephen Ventura). Having gleefully taken pot shots at his subjects with a bow and arrow from his Crimson Cloud Tower, the ruler is criticised by three of his counsellors. One of them, Zhao Dun (James Tucker), who is married to the emperor’s daughter (Lucy Briggs-Owen), is identified as a traitor. He and his family die. Only his newly born son survives, smuggled out of the palace by good-hearted doctor Cheng Ying (Graham Turner). He and his wife (Nia Gwyne) agree to an appalling sacrifice when they permit their new-born infant to be passed off as ‘the orphan’. His neck is broken by Tu’an Gu with a horrifying crack.

Ironically, the real orphan is adopted by Tu’an Gu who schools the boy (Jake Fairbrother) in skills of combat that will one day be used against him.

With stylised settings (Niki Turner), colourful costumes and movement and music (Paul Englishby) to match the mood of the story, this is a compelling and accessible production.

FOUR STARS Until March 28 Tickets: 0844 800 1110 rsc.org.uk