Tip no 1: leave it as late as possible to enter the Playhouse auditorium.

In this Headlong and Leicester Curve production of Salome, it is made abundantly clear from the outset that Oscar Wilde’s play is not another Lady Windermere’s Fan or The Importance of Being Earnest. As you take your seat, it’s easy to imagine that you are standing at the end of a Heathrow runway in full earshot of a 747 taking off. That is the sort of noise you are subjected to as you wait for the action to begin.

But sit tight, because you are about to see a theatrical rarity. Richard Strauss’s opera Salome is common enough, but Wilde’s original play — from which the opera is directly drawn — was originally banned by the Lord Chamberlain in 1892, and still isn’t often performed. Wilde used verse, and the Greek tragedy format of principal characters backed by a chorus, to tell the story of sex-obsessed Herod and his equally sex-obsessed stepdaughter Salome. Snubbed by the prophet Iokanaan (Seun Shote), she is determined — literally — to have his head.

In this raw, muscular, ‘in yer face’ production, director Jamie Lloyd ignores the verse, and the musical possibilities that flow from it. The only sound effects are the clanking of heavy chains (Iokanaan is held captive), and the equally metallic rubbing of machine guns against ammunition pouches on the chorus’s bodies – seeing the show this week, visions of Israeli commandos storming a ship inevitably come to mind.

As Salome, Zawe Ashton presents a highly convincing picture of a spoilt 15-year-old, used to having her own way. The hair-flicking, breast-thrusting, pouting body language is a familiar sight in George Street on a Saturday night. Her striptease dance (with its emphasis on the tease part of the word) is a very clever observation of someone who only half knows what they are doing. Throughout, you wonder if this Salome will take one risk too many. This piece of acting alone is worth the price of a ticket.

Con O’Neill also makes a vivid impression as Herod. His hand frequently rubbing his crotch, he enjoys every sexual titillation or opportunity that comes along, male or female. Very fond of the bottle (as is his wife, excellently played by Jaye Griffiths), his bosses in Rome wonder if he is going mad. They are right to worry: Herod is in a dangerous state.

This production of Salome will not be to everyone’s taste. But it’s an entirely credible, and certainly memorable, way of presenting Wilde’s play to a 21st-century audience.

The Oxford Playhouse, until Saturday. Tel: 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com).