THE dark good looks of actor Ed Stoppard fit perfectly with the dark role of Hamlet in Shakespeare's most famous revenge tragedy.

Family feuds, murder, suicide, madness, Hamlet has it all and this production by the English Touring Theatre Company is suitably gothic and atmospheric.

It's a traditional take on the original play with just a few tweaks by the director Stephen Unwin, who left out some of the more incomprehensible passages.

The cast wore traditional Jacobean costumes and the stage was dark but bare with scenes created entirely with lighting and the absolute minimum of props. It was atmospheric and left the actors and script to carry the story.

It worked. Hamlet contains some of Shakespeare's most well known speeches and listening to them made me consider how sparse and plain the dialogue is in most modern films and TV programmes.

The actors in Hamlet have a lot to say and, for the most part, the cast did it beautifully.

Ed Stoppard, son of the famous playwright, has a face of many moods and can change from petulant to cynical, insane to coolly calculating in an instant. Alice Patten was a wonderful Ophelia and I enjoyed Michael Cronin's Polonius. He made Shakespeare's text sound almost conversational. Anita Dobson and David Robb as Claudius and Gertrude, however, seemed to lack the passion to be truly convincing.

Sue Vickers