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After a staid and notably gimmick-free production of The Merchant of Venice at Stratford, the same players offer us, by contrast, a Taming of the Shrew whose rollicking tone borders on the excessive. The slapstick approach keeps us smiling throughout - not something that happens often with this play - but at times the relentless playing for laughs becomes a trifle wearisome.

Director Conall Morrison maintains the Christopher Sly sub-plot as a prelude to the action, with Stephen Boxer playing the part of the drunken tinker - first seen here being thrown out of a brothel - as well as the wife-taming Petruchio. This framing device has the effect, of course, of considerably reducing the unpleasantness of the Petruchio/Katherina story by stressing its unreality. The staginess of its performance is to be expected from the sort of caricature thesps who tumble from the back of a lorry here to begin their play at the behest not of a lord, this time, but of a whip-wielding lady.

There is more than a touch of the dominatrix, too, about the acid-tongued Kate, as presented by Michelle Gomez. One senses, as with her sister Bianca (Amara Karan), that she possesses a healthy appetite for rumpy-pumpy. The younger girl is found at one point enjoying a frantic bout of love-making, in varied positions, with her 'tutor', the young Lucentio (Patrick Moy). Small wonder that the rivals for her hand, Gremio (Peter Shorey) and Hortensio (Sean Kearns), are a bit miffed.

As ever with this play, the comic servant Tranio comes close to stealing the show with his Figaro-like plots that propel the action along. He is given a nicely-judged performance by Keir Charles. I much enjoyed, too, the Baptista of David Hargreaves, making it abundantly clear, for once, what a mercenary old brute the father is.

The play can be seen until September 25. Box office tel. 0844 8001110 (www.rsc.org.uk).

2:21pm Wednesday 7th May 2008

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