Cymbeline is by all accounts a difficult play. Samuel Johnson famously said "To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names, and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation".

Emma Wilkinson is brave in her new adaptation of this troublesome but canonical work. She shifts the action to modern day Britain where King Cymbeline (Hugh Stubbins) has just enacted the Marriage Equality Act. The problem is his daughter, Imogen (Ami Jones), has chosen to test his tolerance and has married (in secret) a base woman at court, Posthumus Leonatus (Sam Brain). Enter Cymbeline’s queen (Kassi Chalk), who is a sultry villain gifted with a "dissembling courtesy", and she manipulates her king to advance the interests of her foolish son, Cloten (Mark Milligan), and brings about the exile of Imogen.

Wilkinson was always going to have to cut things out to make something compelling out of the unwieldy text within 90 minutes. But I think she cut the wrong bits out. For example the decision to take the character of Pisanio out meant the important reveal that the "drug of such damn’d nature" the Queen supplies Imogen with, which has the effect of stupefying the victim, was too quickly glossed over early on. This has the consequence of Wilkinson’s concluding scenes feeling too much like the final reveal in one of Agatha Christie’s less good novels, utterly implausible and forced. In addition the characterisation of Iachimo (Marco Young) is unfortunately simplified. Although Young does well, he fails to show any coherent motive. Iachimo precipitates the calamities that befall Imogen and Posthumus because of a bet he makes with Posthumus that he can compromise Imogen’s honour as a married woman. In the original play the bet is the result of the resentment Iachimo feels as a noble towards the upstart Posthumus as well as his hot headed ethnicity, Italian according to Shakespeare. In Wilkinson’s adaptation Iachimo is enjoying a few beers with Posthumus and the bet is the inexplicably serious result of banter.

More fundamentally the decision to modernise was symptomatic of a deeper aim to try and make Cymbeline real and believable; this was never going to work. I think the real beauty of Cymbeline is weird and fantastic, literally. My favourite scene is when Cloten brashly approaches the door of his beloved, proposing "First, a very excellent good conceited thing; after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to it, and then let her consider." We completely lose it as Milligan begins to amorously croon for his beloved. And then the joke reaches its sweet conclusion as the rejected lover wonders "I have assailed her with music, but she vouchsafes no notice." Milligan is so darn funny because his Cloten is so obviously ridiculous and unbelievable, caricature rather than real person. Another puzzling move was our introduction to the rightful heir of Cymbeline the young boy Guiderius who is wielding a playstation controller, the problem is in a few scenes he will be lopping off Cloten’s head – the modern addition seemed a self-inflicted implausibility on an already strained character.

Everything I have just said, however, is essentially a matter on which reasonable people might disagree. What is beyond doubt though is the consummate professionalism of the cast. Scene changes were seamlessly executed. The neat use of a dining table, at different angles, with various small additions like bed sheets and a pillow transformed the scene in a minimalist and authoritative manner.

Cymbeline will be performed at 7:30pm, Tue 24th March 2015 - Sun 29th March 2015, at Waterloo East Theatre, London.