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First night review: Doctor Faustus, Globe Theatre, London

And yet embedded in the tale of the German philosopher who sells his soul to the Devil is a morality tale of profound ambivalence.

Matthew Dunster's vivacious production makes full use of the Globe's ambience: Trapdoors open to disgorge demons, huge puppets emerge from doorways and stalk across the stage, the groundlings are drenched with water or forced to duck flying tennis balls and celery. It's a riot.

Dominated by the pairing of Paul Hilton's bearded, wiry Faustus and Arthur Darvill's Mephistopheles - Lucifer's henchman who serves Faustus for the contracted 24 years of life before eternal damnation - this is a ripe, full-blooded exploration of a play that has bewildered scholars since it was written.

The magical incantations that Faustus employs, and even much of the language, echoes Shakespeare's Prospero in The Tempest, while some of the transformations are reminiscent of a Midsummer Night's Dream.

But it is in the sheer anarchy of the action that Faustus defeats all challengers. Marlowe has taken the conventions of the Morality Plays and upended them, revelling in scenes of apparent frivolousness, as when an invisible Faustus ruins the Pope's banquet by stealing the food from his mouth, while his usurped rival is tortured bloodily on stage.

The appearance of The Seven Deadly Sins is played for laughs, with Gluttony resembling Mr Creosote from Monty Python's Meaning of Life, stuffing cream cakes into his mouth.

Most of the cast play double and treble roles with the exception of the two leads - whose physical resemblance gives an added ambivalence.

Darvill, best known as Rory in Dr Who, takes leave of the Tardis with ease and delivers a slinkily persuasive performance as the Devil's right hand man. Hilton is equally good, whether slapping a cardinal or crying to God as he is dragged off to Hell.

But it is the sheer stagecraft that wows the audience - from the skeletal dragons on whose backs Faustus and Mephistopheles ride, to the giant demonic goats, to Helen of Troy appearing as a giant mask held aloft by woman robed in white to create a single entity.

Rude, robust, bawdy, magical and violent, it is a provocatively entertaining production whose "frivolous demands" are more than met.

Box Office: 020 7401 9919

Verdict: 4/5 Opera Review: A Rake's Progress and Semiramide Theatre reviews: Dance Nation and Love’s Labour Lost