EURIPIDES’ tale of Medea is two and a half millennia old yet its themes of gender division still resonate today.

Paired with Northern Broadsides, a theatre company with a reputation for bringing the classics down to earth, this ought to have been a show that pulled along the audience, discarding it emotionally exhausted at the end.

Yet despite a passionate performance from Nina Kristofferson as the woman scorned and a lyrical new script by the poet Tom Paulin, it failed to hypnotise.

With all the action taking place off stage – Medea’s poisoning of her husband-betrayer’s new bride and father-in-law and the coldly calculated murder of her own children – the onus is on the cast to draw out the drama in a series of speeches.

Kristofferson manages to maintain a high level of energy throughout, and if her duplicitous moments are less effective than her bare rage, it’s not for lack of trying. Andrew Pollard was a last minute addition as Jason but you’d never know it so natural he seems in the role.

But there’s such a mishmash of references that it’s gets very disconcerting – the traditional chorus keep bursting into Blues and, while they and Medea are dressed in robes, the men look quite the country gents.

Ultimately, it’s hard to get lost in the plot when a man in a brown bowler hat is discussing the Oracle at Delphi before launching into a number to a saxophone accompaniment.

Laura Davis