I have seen none of The Faction company’s annual new-year rep seasons at the New Diorama Theatre, but on the basis of this production they are a modest bunch, perhaps more so than intended. Their pop-up venue is half-hidden in the basement (lower ground floor, sorry) of Selfridges department store, and on opening night no programmes were available: without an earlier press release, I would have been reduced to commenting along the lines of “Claudio is a skinny, blond chap.”

The cast are predominantly young, the only one with a lengthy resumé being Caroline Langrishe in the sex-changed role of Leonata. The only one onstage, that is, for “video cameos” are played of Meera Syal as an assortment of messengers (or in this version, broadcast news reporters) and Simon Callow and Rufus Hound as the never-sufficiently-comic watchmen Dogberry and Verges. In the latter case, this also affords an opportunity to cut the Watch business to the bare minimum, which is no great loss. The whole production runs at an hour and three-quarters without interval.

At first, I was unimpressed. Daniel Boyd’s Benedick is a little too ostentatious with his wit, so that what is probably meant as self-parody comes off more often as self-satisfaction; Alison O’Donnell’s Beatrice is moderately but not especially engaging. As Mark Leipacher and Rachel Valentine Smith’s production progresses, however, it finds deeper currents and generally succeeds better where there are fewer laughs. The Beatrice/Benedick duologue in Act Four, in which they finally admit their love for each other but also address the dark plot against the other lovers Hero and Claudio (Lowri Izzard and skinny, blond Harry Lister Smith), hits the spot beautifully. Tala Gouveia makes a wonderfully rounded character of Hero’s gentlewoman Margaret (plus a few bits of the here-excised Ursula), giving her a personality of her own rather than leaving her as a plot device. When the accusations against Hero are made at the wedding altar, Gouveia’s Margaret, realising how she had been duped into providing false evidence for them, backs slowly out of the scene in horrified guilt. The proceedings are smartly punctuated by brief snatches from the intros of David Bowie songs – Faction, turn to the left...

Written for the Financial Times.