REVIEW: Love’s Sacrifice – at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from Saturday, April 11 until Wednesday, June 24, 2015.

IF ever there was a Marmite moment for the Royal Shakespeare Company this could well be it.

Having challenged academics to rediscover a forgotten ‘gem’ in an ‘X Factor-style’ competition this is the winning entry – a little known play staged by the RSC for the first time in 400 years.

Written in 1633 by John Ford it has obviously been gathering plenty of dust in the ensuing centuries as it lay forgotten. Now, after years of badgering from academics to put on a wider range of little-known works alongside the RSC’s bill of box office hits, the cobwebs have been brushed away as artistic director Gregory Doran has finally relented.

Giving four academics free rein he challenged them with the task of coming up with a forgotten 17th century play which would work for modern audiences. They eventually arrived at 16 suggested plays through a series of knock-out rounds before coming up with the final winner – Love’s Sacrifice, which is probably best described as a revenge tragedy exploring the destructive power of jealousy.

Past reviews of Ford’s work declared it “puzzling”, “disfigured by faults” and a “botched mess”, a touch unkind but in certain respects not altogether that far off the mark, and much like your first taste of Marmite, you’ll not really be sitting on the fence.

Love’s Sacrifice relates the story of the Duke of Pavy, his beautiful wife, Bianca, and his best friend, Fernando, who falls for Bianca. However, the Duke’s sister, Fiormonda, has her own designs on Fernando which he spurns. She becomes a dangerous woman scorned and with the help of the Duke’s treacherous secretary, D’Avalos, their plotting manipulates her brother’s feelings towards his trusted friend and leads to lost lives.

Much like that yeast extract product – it wouldn’t be my first choice and preferable quite thinly spread. Little performed Love’s Sacrifice – a quite dark tale - is much the same colour and gives much the same feeling, but it is quite delightfully directed by Matthew Dunster and superbly executed by the cast. There's a string of commendable performances, most notably Matthew Needham’s powerful but eventually disturbed Duke of Pavy, while impressing once again in the two leading female roles, as they did in The Jew of Malta, were Catrin Stewart and Beth Cordingly as Bianca and the scheming Fiormonda respectively.

There’s plenty of vim and vigour, as well as blood-letting among the sub-plots to the main theme, and considerable intensity to grip the attention. A primary sideshow is a hat-trick of seductions and pregnancies caused by the ‘triple cad’ Ferentes, enjoyably played by Andy Apollo, while the more amusing lighter  moments of comedy fall endearingly to Matthew Kelly as the buffoonish Mauruccio – a confused yet spritely old man.

There’s also plenty to commend Alexander Balanescu’s truly atmospheric musical score which was fully complemented by Anna Fleischle’s design featuring huge iron pillars and arches, along with the mesmerising flickering flames of hell!

On the matter of old forgotten plays Gregory Doran is quoted as saying: “I’ve fought against a sort of prejudice that if they’re 400 years old and they haven’t been done, they’re not any good. Quite often that’s the case, but sometimes they’re just not done because they’re not done. It needs someone to do them and bring them back into the canon. It’s important we take the time and effort. We have a role to play in putting those plays back up there for serious consideration by academics and audiences alike.”

Love’s Sacrifice is worth the experiment but it won’t be to everyone’s taste be they academic or audience member.