They are a brave and resolute team that tackle this bloodthirsty play. One of Shakespeare’s early Roman works, its wider frame concerns power and rulers, but the gory heart is all about revenge and more revenge, enacted in an horrific domino effect. For contemporary sensibilities, the unremitting carnage which was dished out for popular entertainment all those centuries ago may provoke an initial shudder, until we look more closely at what passes for entertainment in our own times, often without even the ‘wild justice’ rationale provided by revenge. We are not as far from Elizabethan tastes as we might wish to be. 

It is a triumphant Titus Andronicus who returns to Rome after many years in battle. He has conquered the barbarous Goths and brought back as prisoners their ruthless ruler, Tamora, along with her three sons and the vicious Moor, Aaron, who will father her last child. 

Titus is presented as a weary but rigorously honourable man, who refuses the people’s clamour that he should take the throne, deferring to Saturninus, son of the late emperor. Furthermore he has one of Tamora’s sons killed as a symbolic ritual gesture, to even the score between them, son for son in some apparent gesture of finality. 

A bad move that, for when Saturninus is thwarted in his desire to marry Lavinia, daughter of Titus, he chooses Tamora instead, liberating her remaining sons as well and setting up the remorseless chain of revenge and counter revenge, which sees the titular hero driven first to the brink of madness and eventually to a repellent but riveting act, whereby he turns Tamora’s own dark intentions back on her (spoiler alert) as she is served up with a gruesome pie made from her own sons. This is payback for the rape and mutilation of poor Lavinia, whose tongue has been removed along with her hands, so that she cannot reveal the perpetrators.

Titus and almost everyone except his steadfast remaining son, Lucius and stalwart brother Marcus die in the frenzy. The pursuit of revenge inevitably reduces the Titus we saw as brave and honourable at the outset, to something more like a demented revenge machine, so that all the deaths are, in a sense, in vain. Lucius will be Emperor and though his first orders reflect steely justice, they are still merciless.

The challenge for director Dan Bain is to keep us believing in the human suffering that drives the reckless carnage and in spite of many fine ideas and creative solutions to presenting such a monstrous text, the result for me is sometimes less than engaging. Death and mutilation follow so fast upon each other that they become almost casual, only a shrug away from black humour and melodrama. Yet that does not seem to be what was suggested initially when ‘justice’ is a term often used and reason seems to have a place, largely articulated by Marcus Andronicus, brother to Titus.

Chris Reddington’s set allows the world of the play to disintegrate from triumphant Roman order through a wild wood where hunter, hunted and beast are all of a piece, to the apparently civilised banquet table where final horror will play out. Somewhere at its centre, a dark circle can become the pit into which bodies will fall or be thrown and perhaps it suggests too the essential nihilistic nature of humanity.

Other design components reflect the intention to harness maximum impact from the text. Thus Hamish Oliver’s sound is a marvellously effective electronic arrangement, driving the action with relentless precision and from Giles Tanner’s lighting design come effects to shock and disturb. Tina Hutchison-Thomas contributes thoughtful costume design and the properties, aligned with blood effects from the ever skilful illusionist, Julian Southgate, are a triumph in themselves.

The cast tackles this play with great commitment and for me, most successfully when the intensity of the situation has both internal and physical consequences. The best sequences deliver text with relish and clear intelligence.

Owen Black, as a robust Titus, managed the Lear/madness parallel neatly as he spirals into wretchedness and as brother Marcus, Tom Trevella provides a benchmark of reason against which the horrors can be measured. Set against Titus in her role as Tamora, Eilish Moran proves again her versatility and ability to electrify the moment and Miriam Qualls as Lavinia negotiates her way neatly through a hellish role.

Credit is also due to Kathleen Burns, who plays  Lucius as a stern young stripling with fierce conviction and doubles also as the unfortunate Nurse who meets an unpleasant end. Doubling for the minor roles is well covered by the efficient supporting cast.

It is then a richly barbarous tale, presented with elements of flair, but for me, the realisation that real horror is a tricky beast on stage.

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