There was always going to be something odd about a classical history told through a union of baroque opera and musical theatre. Anachronistic at best. But perhaps odd is not quite the right word to describe this production.

Initially it appeared that the Alcock Players were having severe opening night teething problems. The set changes were clumsy, the balance of music against singing was swayed towards the clunky piano and the microphone picked up every page turn and a very bizarre tapping sound. Perhaps they ran out of time at the tech rehearsal.

But not everything can be excused with first-night nerves. The tuning of both the singing (mainly the chorus) and the band was simply awful. To understand the plot it was vital that you knew it already, as the projected scene synopsis was illegible, and much of the singing was incomprehensible.

Admittedly, there were moments which were not squirm-inducing – the scenes with Fate and her minions were entertainingly chaotic, though only then was the chaos an asset to the performance. Fate herself was a sight for sore eyes within the context of the show – think a female Hades from Disney’s Hercules.

According to the advertisement campaign of the show, it promised an updated version of a classic opera, made more accessible by the music and staging, enhanced by the libretto, which was already in English. Unfortunately, there were far too many shortcomings for this to work – the performance was so poor that the vision was obscured. Ironically, the best scene in the whole opera was the very last one, where Dido sang her final aria to almost original scoring (though the band had issues even with playing this very simple accompaniment). Perhaps there is a reason why Purcell’s version of this opera survives to this day and continues to be widely performed just as it was written.