This is a deeply suggestive production of Marlowe's dark menace of a drama. Not in the saucy sense (for all the audience's gasps as men kiss), but in its restrained approach to its bloody themes, and shocking murder: a king buggered with a red-hot poker. Such a take involves hits and misses. The relationship between Edward II benefits from a non-melodramatic portrayal. Timothy Walker's production depicts their passion simply and convincingly, and there's a crackle between them that does, indeed, have the Globe's groundlings shuffling and wolf-whistling in turn.
Gerald Kyd's Gaveston is the ravishing free spirit he should be, slithering around the stage with a physical freedom so lacking in the rest of the court. He plays the stage and audience like a seasoned rock star, while the rest move stiffly, all pomped-up aubergine velvet. Liam Brennan plays the king as a man helpless before his own desires. It is an understated, yet moving, performance.
Less successful is the all-male casting, with Chu Omambala's Queen Isabella never the tragic figure she should be early on, and not the vengeful creature she should be later. In fact, some of Isabella's sorriest and most wicked lines are taken as comic by the crowd. There's only a weakened sense of the country on the brink of civil war - the distant battles are suggested by an unfortunate martial dance routine that has the cast looking like a boy band - and the Machiavellian wickedness of the court doesn't fizz as it should.
That said, this is a production worth seeing for its solid, serious attention to the play's dark heart - you see this most in the horribly clinical murder scene - and its dynamic use of this unique space. Looking up at the night sky, you can ponder how queasily relevant to modern-day Britain are Marlowe's themes: homophobia; the viciousness of the establishment when it perceives itself to be under threat - and the sordid tangle of class, power and sex.
· In rep until September 28. Box office: 020-7401 9919.