Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber is part Gothic romance, part horror, part fairytale, part barely-disguised rip off of Rebecca. The short story (which is the longest and most elaborate  in the collection of the same name) is sensual, thrilling, bloody, feminist, sexy, deeply unsettling – brought to life by Carter’s rich prose and a near constant onslaught of references to great literature, music, art, food, and jewellery. This ADC freshers’ production is sadly none of those things.

For those unfamiliar with Carter’s story, a young pianist is seduced by the riches of a much older aristocrat, who frightens and arouses her in equal measure. Returning to his castle by the sea after their marriage, she is left alone on their wedding night with instructions not to enter a specific room; she disobeys her new husband, and discovers the mutilated bodies of his previous wives. If the show created any sense of suspense, I would refrain from spoiling the end, but I don’t feel any guilt in revealing that our heroine escapes, and kills the sadistic marquis with the help of her tiger-slaying mother and a blind piano tuner.

Perhaps the production was merely doing the best it could with a truly tragic adaptation – I was astounded when I looked up the playwright Bryony Lavery to discover that she had written for the Olivier Stage at the National Theatre and even been nominated for a Tony Award. The script seemed to totally misunderstand the source material, removing any sense of sisterhood between the wives by having their corpses sarcastically berate the heroine for her innocence and virginity – particularly odd seeing as such an emphasis is made on her ‘potential for corruption’, and frequently having dramatic suspense side-tracked as the characters shifted into unnecessary narration.

“There was no clear decision on how the play was supposed to make us feel.”

With such a dire script it is commendable that the actors made the show even vaguely worth watching. Supporting actors Lise Delamarre and Sophie Stemmons deserve praise for approaching their roles with the perfect combination of nuance and pantomime. I also enjoyed the housekeeper, portrayed with great black comedy by Phoenix Ali, especially for the delivery of the line, “Shut up, you blind peasant bastard,” which I have no memory of appearing in the source material. Unfortunately, the dialogue throughout was delivered far too slowly, contributing to this production’s considerable pacing issue, and characters dramatically shifted between emotions in such a way that it was difficult to trace an increase in tension or a character arc to any of them.

It was almost impossible to feel invested in the plight of Isobel Maxwell’s heroine, although she did have a difficult task in a play so centred on a single character. I would have liked to feel more genuinely threatened by the Marquis, and I hope that Zachary Aw’s confidence will improve in further performances and shows. Fundamentally the lack of tension was the greatest issue with the production, whether of sex or horror – the romantic relationships were not vaguely plausible and there was never any real sense of threat.

Issues with tech and lighting were no doubt opening night teething issues which will be resolved in further performances. Hopefully practice will allow the cast and tech team to speed up the scene transitions, which often left the audience staring at a dark stage for far too long, unsure whether to start applauding the end of the play. The set is impressively elaborate for a late show, and props are well used, although costumes did not always seem consistent, and would have benefited from a more coherent colour scheme.

Perhaps with more fine-tuning, and either a more naturalistic or more stylised approach, this play would have considerable merit. It would have been possible to convey this story as deeply unsettling psychosexual horror, or as a grown-up pantomime. This production did neither, and there was no clear decision on how the play was supposed to make us feel at all. The cast clearly have potential, but decisions to shy away from the sex and violence in this play, which is about sex and violence, essentially turn it into a non-event. If you’re going to The Bloody Chamber expecting blood, you will be disappointed.