Advertisements for the Pembroke Player’s performance of Edward II boast that “this production aims to use innovative staging to evoke the full intensity and high stakes of Marlowe's tragedy”. If ‘innovative’ means having the audience seats arranged so that no-one in the second row can see anything, I’m not that impressed. To be fair though, given that Pembroke New Cellars is basically a basement, both the lighting and the occasional use of music were quite effective at times. But the costumes often seemed to be falling apart, with ragged hems on noblemen’s tunics and an over-reliance on cheap black leggings. Plus everyone went barefoot, and while I understand the difficulty of sourcing suitable footwear, it just seemed odd for earls to be swaggering around in cloaks and swords with no shoes on.

Which is a shame, because some of the acting was really rather good. Really rather brilliant in fact, given that, despite all the myriad deficiencies in production, I was at times convinced I was in the middle of a 14th century English court. The play focuses on the eponymous King Edward, his love for Pierre Gaveston, his rage when Gaveston is killed by Baron Mortimer and a group of nobles, and his tragic end, murdered in a dungeon. For me though, the real stars of the play were Eleanor Mack as Queen Isabella and Will Bishop as Mortimer. They perfectly conveyed the complexity of these characters, Isabella torn between her former love for her husband, her hatred of her usurper Gaviston, her ambition for her son and her feelings for Mortimer. Mortimer, with his attraction to Isabella, his pride, and above all, his ruthless personal ambition. By contrast Eloïse Poulton was rather insipid for the racy Gaviston, while Lauren Brown as Edward was an inconsistent character. Towards the end she was convincingly unhinged as she contemplated the loss of both her crown and her life, but her lack of ‘kinglyness’ at the beginning of the play lessened the effect of her descent into madness and impotence – there was not enough of a contrast between proud monarch and desperate prisoner to make Edward’s fall seem truly tragic.

On the whole, the production seemed conflicted between the wish to portray a historically accurate world with realistic costumes and an attempt to modernize Marlowe’s play with contemporary music. Nevertheless, the fact that they succeeded in conveying the extraordinary poetry of Marlowe’s script and making the complex plot completely understandable to a modern audience says much for their clarity of deliverance. Moreover, some superb acting from Queen Isabella and Mortimer managed to elevate the performance from a mere recital of lines to a moving, compelling, and at times completely believable tragedy.