THERE are no rubber ring-clad women in Herman Melville’s original, but that doesn’t stop Spymonkey from making one central to its re-telling of Moby Dick.

The new version is deliciously reckless with the plot, taking the whole of the first act to cover the initial few pages of the book and skipping straight to Ahab’s confrontation with the whale in the second.

Only, in this adaptation, the obstinate captain tackles his nemesis in the form of a WWF fight, complete with an incomprehensible commentator and a clanging bell.

In between, the cast bumbles its way through the tale, employing just about every theatrical device they could think of – song, physical theatre, dance, magic and (very bad) puppetry – held together with plenty of slapstick and daft jokes.

There are few women’s parts in the story, so the one female cast member (Petra Massey) goes to great lengths to find herself a role in the show – appearing as a mermaid ruing her lack of fertility and a self-created love interest for Ishmael.

Toby Park is straight out of 1950s boys’ stories of derring do – first as the creepy innkeeper and then as Ahab, all straight spine and brooding eyes.

Because this is Spymonkey, the narrator’s role naturally falls to the Spanish member of the cast (Aitor Basauri). Cue lots of comedy mispronunciations from the twinkly-eyed sailor.

Stephan Kreiss was responsible for one of the laugh-out-loud moments in the show – slipping across the stage as the cannibal harpooner unused to stairs.

And the underwater take on physical theatre, with fluorescent dancing coral and Moby Dick resembling a whale-shaped superhero, is almost too professional to be funny.

The maritime set, with moving sails and barnacles on the ship’s hull, and the clever sound effects are a reminder that, despite its deliberate shabbiness, this is a highly polished performance.

LAURA DAVIS