Edward Hall calls Rose Rage an 'adaptation', extending and enhancing the 'simplifying process' that Shakespeare worked on the subject-matter of the histories (though not nearly enough in the case of Henry VI, which appears on the page as a clunky, interminable early daub in the Titus mould). What begs to stay, both narrative and textual, stays; what matters is that the whole should be structurally faithful, and the trick seems to be what you leave in rather than what you leave out. In this case what stays seems to be the (strictly plot-enhancing) butchery, and the poetry.

The pace is unrelenting, and the conceit - a chilling, surreal slaughterhouse, its inhabitants a deeply unsettling chorus of asbestos-masked-and-coated carvers - quite terrifying. The play begins with a hummed-then-sung-then-bellowed Jerusalem, pregnant with blood; it ends, brashly and triumphantly, with the opening lines of Richard III - extended enough for the dawn of recognition, and wickedly cut off in their prime. There is no better symbol of the effortless efficiency which drives these two hours of wildly confident theatre - theatre that carries far greater emotional and physical clout than any film could muster.

The singing is consistent and vibrant, first-rate both atmospherically and musically. The all-male cast imbue the female characters with all the fascinating charisma attributable to deep moral loathsomeness; Margaret (Robert Hands), a beautifully appetizing sadist, is more Iago-like even than Richard (Richard Clothier) - and Richard is by far the star of the show. ('Rose Rage' as title is no gimmick: it restores the balance to underplay a miserably weak Richard II-style Henry, and Richard has enough rage in him to claim its title as his own).

The original rebel Plantagenet's three sons are the best things here - a loutish suite of Mafiosi, they are turncoat murderers when left alone: Edward a brutish, sozzled, pathetic braggart, Clarence a squib, Richard a smiling demon. Two of Richard's moments - the declaration against love that closes the first half, and his murder of Henry which crowns the second - are at once desperately unnerving and gorgeous, the works of a tyrant-genius.

Young Prince Edward, his voice yet to break, is a soldier-suited fool; but his death, and that of York's son Rutland, are immensely painful to watch in spite of the choreographed absence of physical contact in the fight scenes (knives are sharpened and raw meat viciously chopped and sliced in unison instead - perhaps the play's most powerful trick). Edward Hall has juicily carved up a notoriously flabby play, and seasoned it well. This is theatre to gorge oneself on.

Tom Hill, 25.07.02