Despite its introspection and literary articulation, Hamlet has been a source of inspiration to countless choreographers. Many have tried and many have failed to bring Shakespeare's psychological masterpiece to the dance stage. But that hasn't deterred David Nixon, the artistic director of Northern Ballet Theatre, who now weighs in with his own adaptation.

It's different, that's for sure. Nixon has turned the Prince of Denmark into a young French soldier caught up in the horror of the German Occupation of Paris in the 1940s. This provides a potent paintbox of images to underscore the violence and brutality of Nixon's vision. Swastika flags and Nazi uniforms will always send a chill down the spine, and with Claudius reimagined as the head of police and Polonius as a member of the Gestapo the murderous intrigues have a modern resonance.

Nixon's touring production comes with genuine foreboding, but those hoping for a coherent narrative won't find it, unless they have already absorbed the programme's long synopsis. The story's familiar touchstones - Claudius's crime, Hamlet's misery and Ophelia's madness - are there, but they play out like the ingredients in a Second World War espionage thriller. This makes the ballet less about Hamlet's revenge, indeed less about him, and more about the way history turns against the key players. It doesn't help that Nixon freefalls between the real world and Hamlet's fevered imagination, or that the opening flurry of characters sweeps across the stage too indistinctly, making it difficult to tell one male character from another. It's also unfortunate that Philip Feeney's score is too cinematic for such narrative detail, or that Tim Mitchell's lighting is so dark, at times obscuring faces amid the grey of Christopher Giles's oppressive set. Still, Nixon's choreography is full of pretty phrasing (where appropriate) and striking novelty. An early duet for Hamlet and Ophelia is gently expressive and suffused with simple joy. By contrast, Gertrude and Claudius have rough sex and top it off with a languorous duet. But Nixon is also trading in some extremely strong stuff. Ophelia's end (gang-raped and killed by Nazi soldiers) is ugly and explicit, while the torture of a Resistance prisoner made me wince and Hamlet's confrontation with his mother is sexually unsettling, as it should be.

It all ends badly, but not as you might think, and the initial confusion is only compounded in the second half. Nathalie Leger (a passionate Gertrude), Georgina May (a touching Ophelia) and Darren Goldsmith (an odious Claudius) give fine performances. But Christopher Hinton-Lewis is underused in the title role, even though his mood swings and descent into suicidal despair are drawn in big, broad strokes.

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