Poor Duke Theseus: at Shakespeare’s hands he never seems to enjoy either an incident-free wedding or a decent floorshow. In A Midummer Night’s Dream his nuptials are interrupted by a quartet of confused young lovers and the best he can do for cabaret is the rude mechanicals; in The Two Noble Kinsmen it’s, respectively, a trio of queens urging him to war and a morris-dancing baboon (less fun than it sounds, even with added penis-fencing).

This late work co-written with John Fletcher is probably Shakespeare’s least well-known play: after over 25 years of reviewing, this is the first time I have seen it. It is primarily an adaptation of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale about two Athenian cousins, Palamon and Arcite, who are inseparable friends and paragons of all the knightly virtues until they both fall for the same woman, Theseus’ sister-in-law Emilia. Along with this Shakespeare and Fletcher have interwoven a sub-plot about the Athenian jailer’s daughter who falls in love with Palamon when the knights are imprisoned, helps him to escape and runs mad for love of him.

Blanche McIntyre directs with a characteristic combination of smartness and cheek, but her inventiveness cannot fully stave off the sense that this is an unusually talky play for Shakespeare. Palamon and Arcite argue obsessively, the opening appearance by the three queens is just an extremely verbose way of changing the location from Thebes to Athens, and even Arcite’s climactic death occurs, Greek-tragedy-style, offstage and is recounted at length by a messenger. Moreover, I’m not convinced that the play actively satirises ideas of chivalry and courtly love, as some scholars claim; I think they’re just peremptorily jettisoned once the conflict over Emilia fires up (with Palamon declaring in as many words, “I saw her first!”).

James Corrigan and Jamie Wilkes do sterling work as the knights, although they are handier with their tongues than with their (oddly, Japanese) swords. Danusia Samal broadens the Jailer’s Daughter’s ravings out from the one note on which they are written, but could do with going further still. The chap in the baboon mask is modestly uncredited. McIntyre & Co. make it worth watching, but it won’t be joining the canon of greats any time soon.

Written for the Financial Times.