Verona is not as fair as it once was. In James Brining's new production of Shakespeare's evergreen drama of star-crossed lovers there are weeds growing through the once elegant black-and-white tiled pavements. The furniture is lop-sided. Even the walls are out of kilter in Neil Warmington's pale grey set. Romeo is attempting to bash out a tune on the equally grey grand piano as the play begins but it keeps going wrong.

Set in some vaguely contemporary period, (suits for the guys, Highland dress for the Capulet ball) it all suggests that there is something essentially decadent about the feud between the Capulets and Montagues, something sour and tawdry that should have been cleared up years ago. It's a promising idea, but, like a number of others, it never quite goes anywhere. There's a loutish Mercutio (Paul Hickey) rather than the more familiar quicksilver jester; Paris is a young military officer (Sam Heughan, handsome and decent enough to be credible competition for Romeo); Friar Laurence is the chorus (Cliff Burnett).

That is partly because too many of the cast deliver too many of their lines as if they were some sort of dangerous potion prepared for them by the apothecary; they don't really understand them but they need to get rid of them as fast as possible.

Ann Louise Ross's Nurse, in particular, instead of the bustling bawdy busybody the text cries out for, is left high and dry, with simply not enough to do.

Hannah Donaldson, who gave notice of a big new talent in a recent production of Antigone, needs a lot more help to turn Juliet into flesh and blood and Kevin Lennon, as Romeo, is not much better.

What makes it all the more frustrating is that there are tantalising glimpses of what might have been.

Robert Paterson as Capulet senior, one of the most experienced members of the company, shows them all how it should be done when he tells his errant daughter that if she doesn't shape up and marry Paris he will disown her. He looks deceptively mild, but his cold fury and his insistence that he will not be “forsworn” are delivered like a whiplash.

For the rest, it is all too much like Juliet's huge four-poster bed, which time and again is ponderously lowered from the flies and flown out again like a leaden yo-yo, sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes stuck halfway between. Even when, predictably, it transforms into her bier, it adds nothing and is an unfortunate distraction.

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To March 29

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