By Joy Watters

EXPECTATIONS were high for Dominic Hill’s last production at Dundee Rep before heading to the Traverse in Edinburgh, and he doesn’t disappoint.

No holds are barred in a tale that veers between comic and tragic, with Hill demonstrating the skill that makes him one of the foremost reinterpreters of the classics.

This radical reworking of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt is a co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland—which means greater resources, including a 20-strong cast.

The stage is stripped back to create a vast space extending in all directions and into the gods; an appropriately massive area for a huge undertaking.

Ibsen’s dramatic poem has been sharpened into explosive dialogue, discarding some of the folkloric elements and increasing the focus on Peer Gynt.

Colin Teevan’s adaptation is a masterful piece of story-telling, employing a profane vocabulary which, after the initial shock, gives rhythm and edge.

Director Dominic Hill is at his ingenious best. It is no mere showmanship but rather an amazingly inventive way of telling a story, making it engaging and provoking, hilarious and tragic.

The augmented ensemble sure-footedly takes on the challenge of a piece which roams all over the auditorium and beyond, while words, music, song and dance combine to create compelling entertainment.

The picaresque tale follows Peer Gynt, dreamer, liar and womaniser.

After going to a wedding he makes off to the forest with the bride.

He dumps her after the dirty deed, cannot return to the village, and takes up with the daughter of the king of the trolls. Painful initiation ceremony and troll child nothwithstanding, he leaves as Solveig, the embodiment of innocence and faith, arrives to rescue him.

The second half shows Peer in Africa, having made a fortune through dubious dealings.

The tide turns and he ends up in an asylum before returning home to find that he is too mediocre to go to heaven or hell.

Keith Fleming is outstanding as the younger Peer: the braggart and storyteller, immoral and energetic, a skewed visionary who does not know himself.

Ann Louise Ross is his loyal mother, and the bond between them is particularly moving at her death scene.

Gerry Mulgrew is the older Peer, the mercenary who returns home ruined.

Robert Paterson is revolting and chilling as the troll king.

Drama student Helen Mackay, who stepped into the role of Solveig at the last minute, acquitted herself beautifully.

The ensemble plays villagers, mountain people, trolls, madmen, monkeys and wedding guests in fantastic set pieces.

This unmissable production runs until October 13.