Used my Scotland wide bus pass yesterday to take a trip to Dundee to see a production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. The journey up was a bit long though it was a nice sunny day to contemplate the beauties of rural Fife. The return journey via Perth and the M90 was much faster, not wildly longer than the train.

The theatre was full to bursting. It took a few minutes for my fear that the show was going to consist mainly of amplified noise to prove unfounded and I settled down to enjoy it.

It was a production with all its innards on show; techies squatting on the stage amidst sound boxes, microphones and mixers, child dummy wiggling its legs with the help of an actor, asm doing baby gurgles into a mike, actors pottering about in the visible wings changing hats and so on and so forth. The text was more currently colloquial and relaxed than ours. It suited the production style, but why change Grusinia to Georgia - an imaginary setting to a real one?. Interesting that in Act 2 at least (with which I'm more familiar) they had chosen to cut it in much the same places as Claire.

The overall acting style was high energy and full frontal. There were some lovely broadly drawn inventive characterisations and a co-ordination of actor and effect which I admired. I'm thinking of the soldiers marching for example or the precise crack as the messenger unfurled her arm to place a letter in front of the governer.

To play the bandit Irakli as a yardie was inspired and I just cracked up in the opening scene of Act2 as the Grand Duke sprayed Azdak with cheese. Bringing the audience in to share the pleasure of his retaliation we could have been at a pantomime and that didn't seem out of place.

On the other hand I thought the final court case where the fate of the child is decided was underplayed and lacked tension. There and in other places too I felt some lines were not delivered clearly, or is that my hearing starting to go?

A great show though with ideas aplenty to borrow.