The Two Noble Kinsmen, Shakespeare's Globe, London, review: Barrie Rutter's production is delightfully inventive and blissfully clear

This lesser-known Shakespeare is served with the perfect blend of silliness and tenderness

A riotous, clog-stomping tour de force that perfectly showcases the costumes (Nobby Clark)

Directing a play as little performed as The Two Noble Kinsmen involves something of a trade-off. You’re free to experiment all you like – no crowds of traditionalists tutting as they compare yours with 20 productions they’ve loved. But equally, no ready-made crowds. And no implicit understanding of the story.

Which becomes trickier still when this particular Jacobean tragi-comedy – written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher – has its roots in Chaucer’s tales, Italian romance and Greek mythology.

But director Barrie Rutter makes a virtue of the play’s diverse heritage and unfamiliar story. Combining wild and wandering music and design, meticulous direction and bags of humour, his first play since stepping down as artistic director of Northern Broadsides is both delightfully inventive and blissfully clear.

The play follows cousins Arcite and Palamon, imprisoned in Athens while fighting on behalf of their wretched uncle, King Creon. Their apparently unshakeable bond is perfunctorily severed when they both spy Emilia from their cell, and a battle to win her affection ensues when they escape captivity.

Rutter gets a roaring head start from his adept cast – there isn’t a weak link to be found. And there are some undeniable stars.

Bryan Dick and Paul Stocker as Arcite and Palamon flit between impassioned declarations of friendship and petty one-upmanship like a couple of eight-year-olds in the playground. And Francesca Mills brings an extravagant physicality to the jailer’s daughter, amplifying both the comedy of her unbridled lust, and her desperate disorientation as she loses her mind.

Jos Vantyler, playing the schoolmaster, achieves an unsettling blend of preening luvvie and ruthless puppeteer as he directs the play’s pivotal morris dance.

And what a dance it is: a riotous, clog-stomping tour de force that perfectly showcases Jessica Worrall’s costumes – a vibrant take on pastoral ‘Merrie England’. The climax of Ewan Wardrop’s ingenious choreography, along with Eliza Carthy’s genre-spanning original music, produce many of the night’s most joyous surprises.

Look out for the moment the five-piece onstage folk band becomes a funky New Orleans outfit, and a funeral procession descends into a mini dance number with grieving widows twirling their black umbrellas.

It is these small moments of unexpected silliness that make this production fly. And Rutter comes back to them time and again in his direction. Often understated but always precise, his smallest decisions bring the biggest laughs – like the ankle chains that bind the cousins’ feet, puncturing every moment of macho posturing with a clumsy shuffle.

There is perfectly judged tenderness and pathos. Arcite and Palamon’s mutual love is never far from the surface, despite their bravado. And one of the evening’s funniest scenes is also its most heartbreaking, as the jailer (Andy Cryer) frantically sings, dances and role plays, all in a bid to humour his daughter’s delusions and keep her afloat.

It may not be a Hamlet or a Twelfth Night. It may take a little getting into. But The Two Noble Kinsmen is absolutely worth a watch, especially when the production is as good as this one.

Until 30 June (shakespearesglobe.com)