WITH incest, tearful monologues and a body count Quentin Tarantino would be proud of, John Ford’s Tis Pity She’s a Whore is just as much soap opera as it is 17th-century tragedy.

Today’s audiences may have grown immune to seeing bloodbaths enacted for their entertainment, but brother and sister declaring entirely unplatonic love for one another before heading to bed still has the power to shock, even if you know to expect it.

A modern slant also brings a more sinister perspective to other elements in this production, part of the Everyman’s Unbound season marking the end of the current building to make way for the new.

Matti Houghton plays Annabella as almost childlike – uncomfortable in her own skin and not yet sure of her femininity.

It is only when her deeds have been uncovered by the husband she has married to cover them up that she seems to grow up and accept the terrible consequences of her incestuous love.

Giovanni then, played by a hand-wringing, hair-tugging Hugh Skinner, appears impulsive and selfish – taking advantage of his sister’s trust and spinning from emotions of love/ lust to bloody revenge in a baffling twist of logic.

It is performed over three levels – the main stage, a well in the middle providing Annabella’s bedroom and a platform high up at the back.

This works better during the first half of the production, when actors pose in tableaux while the action takes place elsewhere.

In the second part however, it becomes confusingly topsy-turvy.

It is, deliberately, an uncomfortable play to watch as characters reveal their hypocrisy and the plot unravels in double standards.

Hippolita, passionately played by Emily Pithon, is condemned for seeking revenge on the man who spurned her, yet the same is considered a justifiable act when Soranzo (Nicholas Shaw) plans it against Annabella for a similar crime. No feminist would approve.

With a strong supporting cast that only occasionally gets tripped up by the language, Tis Pity is challenging, brave programming and proves the Everyman’s current incarnation plans to go out just as it came in – with a mighty bang.