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Is Hamlet a sympathetic character? It’s a question which regularly plagues literary students across the world.

If Patrick Sandford’s production currently running at Southampton’s Nuffield Theatre is to be believed, the answer is a resounding ‘no’.

It’s not as if Stephen Noonan in the lead role gives a bad performance, just a strangely unmoving one.

Instead of an embittered son tortured by the knowledge of his father’s murder, the Prince of Denmark comes across as little more than a high-energy comedian with a nice line in word-play and a cruel streak a mile wide.

Praise should go to Noonan for the pure energy of his performance, which reaches a fine climax in the closing sword fight, but his is a two-dimensional Hamlet - fun at times to watch, but ultimately not worthy of any greater feeling.

Indeed, the director, while producing a pleasingly fast-paced and streamlined version, seems most at home when drawing out the laughs from Shakespeare’s tragedy.

As a result, John Woodvine proved an audience favourite as comic relief Polonius. Meanwhile, Mr Sandford hampers the cast with a costume design that simply serves to heighten the audience’s sense of detachment from the central emotions at play.

Opting for a mish-mash of styles from different eras - which sees Hamlet dressed as a middle-aged man’s idea of a fashionable modern anti-hero and Horatio as a bespectacled, flare-wearing student - it seems Mr Sandford has perhaps tried a little too hard to put his own stamp on the play.

Still, this production is worth catching, if only to see a different take on an old favourite that will certainly add to the debate over one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays.