"This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine," says Prospero of Caliban, key words that occur towards the end of Andrew Hilton's revival of Shakespeare's late, but almost certainly not final play. There is no breaking of staves as a farewell to art here, and neither does Hilton take the now familiar route of presenting the piece as a parable of colonialism, or even a play about the crucial importance of taking social and political responsibility.
No, there is something far more intriguing going on here in this journey into Prospero's mind, where the tricksy and airy Ariel and the "poisonous" earthbound Caliban, played by a single actor, are manifestations of the warring parts of Prospero himself. Prospero eventually reaches a point where he acknowledges the darkness inside himself.
Does this Jekyll-and-Hyde approach work? Well, it's certainly a departure for Hilton, whose productions more often rely on superlative storytelling and verse-speaking rather than offering a distinctive take on the play; there are times when this interpretation doesn't have the clarity and vividness of many previous productions, as if the energy is being expended elsewhere. It also makes great demands on Christopher Staines, most recently an excellent Puck in this theatre, who seems over-worked playing both Ariel and Caliban, even requiring a body double at some points.
There are some good performances – most notably from the Tobacco Factory's Shakespeare stalwarts Peter Clifford and Alan Coveney, who play the treacherous Antonio and Sebastian with flippant, casual cruelty. There is very good lurching, drunken comic relief, too, from Chris Donnelly as Stephano and Felix Hayes as Trinculo. But it says something when the minor characters provide the most enjoyable sequences of the evening.
The suggestion that Ariel and Caliban are part of Prospero himself raises some interesting questions (not least whether Prospero wants to rape his own daughter) that are not always answered here. Ffion Jolly's wide-eyed Miranda does seem a little afraid of her father, but that might be because Ian Barritt's rather under-powered Prospero often seems like an omnipotent child who uses other people as his playthings and whose vengeful raising of raging storms has a temper-tantrum quality.
Still, there's joy – most obviously in the relationship between Miranda and Benjamin Askew's likable Ferdinand – and plenty of magic in the soundscape. If the evening never entirely convinces, it does offer a fresh approach to a well-worked play.
