Theatregoers have just nine days left in which to see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s sensational production of The Tempest which ends its run in the main house at Stratford on January 21.

Under the practised hand of artistic director Gregory Doran, this is a show which welds the magic of William Shakespeare’s imagination at its most fecund to some hi-tech wizardry ideally suited to the story he tells.

Simon Russell Beale returns to the company after 20 years to play Prospero, lending an air of resigned, and affecting, melancholy to the role of the exiled duke, who is far from the magisterial magus we are traditionally shown.

Russell Beale is pictured left with Mark Quartley, as Ariel, the character around whom is created much of the eye-popping imagery from the RSC’s collaborators, The Imaginarium Studios.

Equipped with a sensor-equipped suit (and an elaborate sticky-up hairdo), he provides movements and a body image to create an Ariel avator whch is then projected around the stage. It’s truly amazing..

Members of the audience from Oxford have extra reason to enjoy Quartley’’s excellent performance since he was brought up in the city and educated at St Edward’s School.

Wonderful colours, kaleidoscopic at times, are created by designer Stephen Brimson Lewis, Finn Ross (video) and Simon Spencer (lighting) reminding this member of the audience at least of the psychedelic Sixties.

Another memory of those years comes in the massive reptilian Caliban of Joe Dixon, who is often seen waving a large fish like one of Monty Python’s fish-slapping dancers.

Like the Pythons, he too gives us welcome comedy in the drunken antics with the jester Trinculo (Simon Trinder, another welcome returner to the company) and bad-hat butler Stephano (Tony Jayawardena).

Less successful is the love interest in the story involving Prospero’s daughter Miranda (Jenny Rainsford) and Ferdinand (Daniel Easton), the son of the shipwrecked King of Naples (James Tucker).

Though her words speak of a powerful attraction to the lad, her actions tell a rather different story.

But this is a minor blemish in an otherwise top-notch production. Even the play’s silly masque, which led Doran to seek the groundbreaking technology, is for once a delight to watch.

Box office: rsc.org.uk.

CHRISTOPHER GRAY 4/5