'Tis Pity She's a Whore (tour – Colchester)

John Ford's tragedy of the love between a brother and sister was most probably written and first staged in the 1620s, though it's set in the Italy of the Renaissance – a place and time which exercised a peculiar fascination for playwrights from the Elizabethan to the Caroline periods.

There are many ways in which it can be presented; displaying the ferocious violence and blood-blotted fifth acts we associate with Jacobean tragedy is a perennial problem for the director and designer. Nervous laughter from an audience with its emotions screwed over-tight can be a frequent reaction.

Donnellan and Nick Omerod ensure that this doesn't happen by whirling us through the story from student Giovanni's return to Parma to the desperate carnage which follows his sister Annabella's marriage to the oh-so-eminently-suitable Soranzo in one continuous dramatic swoop.

The setting is the sort of cluttered bedroom one could associate with any pampered teenage girl – wall posters, cuddly toys, en-suite bathroom, iPods and iPads – within walls of womb-red. The suggestion is that this is a place where what is displayed matters far more than what is felt.

I saw this production two years ago with a lightly different cast. You believe completely that Orlando James' Giovanni has the mental arrogance to conclude that what he wants he must and can have.

Eve Ponsonby manages the mix of sex kitten (maturing through genuine passion into the prospect that – left in peace – she might come to terms with her future) to emphasise her final tragedy. This is someone who has learnt to think through to the consequences.

Of the other performances, Will Alexander's Vasques, servant ultimately to one master only, and Maximilien Seweryn's Soranzo stand out. As do Ruth Everett as Hippolita, who Soranzo discards, and Nicola Sanderson as that timeless figure of danger to innocence, the half-bawd, half-nurse confidante.

The moral conscience of the play should be the Friar, Giovanni's former tutor now his confessor. Unfortunately, though Raphael Sowole has the presence for the part, his enunciation swallows up most of his speeches. It leaves a certain vacancy where there should be absolute certainty.

'Tis Pity She's a Whore runs at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester until 21 February then tours nationally and internationally until 19 June.