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The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster - The Cardinal

- Northampton Royal Theatre (Touring).

'The horror, the horror!' 'The Duchess of Malfi' is an extraordinary Jacobean revenge tragedy, one of Webster's greatest plays, powerful, gripping and complex, with language that approaches the density and poetry of Shakespeare. To take drama like this to 13-year olds in the Midlands and the North should be a wonderful way of exposing them to all the richness that the theatre can offer. Sadly, this bare-bones, cheapskate production merely demonstrated to all of them how truly inept and patronising badly directed and ill-conceptualised theatre can be. The cast-list had been trimmed for cost-cutting purposes to such an extent that the Cardinal - who is the instigator of most of the evil in the play - was also given any of the clown's lines that were needed to advance the plot, leading to a bizarre 'spit-personality' effect as the character moved from high poetry to 'odds sowter and a fox's tail' jokes in the space of a paragraph. All the other characters shared this unfortunate handicap.

The trimming of the cast also meant that we had exactly the same number of characters as there are murders in the play - which meant that we had to re-write Webster so that the last remaining character committed suicide(!), there being no-one left to kill him.

As if all this wasn't bad enough, all the furniture on stage was made from unfinished chipboard and all the costumes from cheesecloth. The result was that, every time a character moved too close to an item of furniture, the costume snagged it and dragged it with them wherever they went until the actor wrenched the offending article of clothing away with a terrible ripping sound. What those poor kids made of it all, I hesitate to think.

I was, however, given perhaps the most brilliant piece of direction ever in this production. The director, who had already distinguished himself by plotting a sudden fade of the lights immediately before Bosola's line 'Oh, what a gloomy world', with resultant hilarity among both the cast (and the audience) took me aside and gave me an idea he'd had about my death.

"Now, the Cardinal is the well-spring of evil in the play," he said. "And when he dies, I want him to suddenly realise the enormity of his crimes, realise that he will spend all of eternity in hell. I think it would be great if you could die with your eyes wide open and staring into this eternity of torment. I want the audience to see the horror of it in your eyes, even in death."

He looked at me, waiting for my congratulations on this astonishing piece of cleverness.

"It's a nice idea," I said. "But I'm lying right at the front of the stage with my face towards the audience. The front row are only a few feet away...and there's about another ten or fifteen minutes of the play to run..."

Understanding slowly entered his face. "Oh, you mean you won't be able to keep your eyes open for all that time," he said.

"Well, I don't think anyone could," I said.

He thought for a long time. Then inspiration hit and he delivered his final word on the subject, a remark that can still make me laugh today. "I know," he said, triumphantly. "Blink when no-one's looking!"