Star-driven overseas productions usually arrive in Australia trailing a plethora of glowing reviews from major mastheads. Izzard’s The Tragedy of Hamlet? Not so much.

The UK’s Guardian awarded it a single star, describing the performance as “in essence like a reading, with little compelling movement or emotional purchase … more an exercise in vanity than artistic purpose”.

London’s Evening Standard followed suit: “This one-person Hamlet is an act of colossal vanity and hubris, hung on the skimpiest artistic justification.”

Suzy Izzard: The Tragedy of Hamlet. Photo © Daniel Boud

Hamlet is, I’m relieved to say, much better than those star ratings suggest, though I don’t doubt that some will find this visually minimal production, directed by Selina Cadell and adapted by Izzard’s brother Mark Izzard, hard going compared with elaborate, bells-and-whistles solo shows such as Sydney Theate Company’s Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray. The opening-night audience was noticeably thinner after the interval.

From the start, it’s obvious that stand-up comedian-turned-actor Eddie – now Suzy – Izzard, 64, has the acting chops for the task. Dressed in leather pants and a striking jacket, Izzard cuts a powerful figure – Shakespearean monarch meets pub landlady – in what is essentially a faithful two-hour version of a four-plus-hour text. There are some minor substitutions in the language; only one rankled with me: “heron” for “handsaw”.

Voicing 23 roles, she pays scrupulous attention to rhythm and allows the language to claim its full height. She is constantly on the move, circling the bare stage between scenes like a boxer psyching up for the next round. At times, the rapid-fire cuts between characters in dialogue recall an old music-hall “half-and-half” routine, but each speaker is clearly differentiated and makes an immediate impact.

Suzy Izzard: The Tragedy of Hamlet. Photo © Daniel Boud

Closely miked, Izzard’s voice is quite a weapon: rich, expressive and versatile. Hamlet’s advice to the players (“for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness …”) has clearly been taken to heart.

Though Izzard takes pains to disabuse her audience of any expectation that the piece will be a comic endeavour, there are some deliciously funny moments. The hapless conspirators Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are reduced to hand gestures. The gravedigger – whose Cockney accent Izzard drops into effortlessly – is played straight and is all the funnier for it.

Izzard makes good use of minimal lighting. A single spotlight creates a visual slash down the backcloth; two floor-mounted spots create enormous shadows that sometimes give the impression that Izzard is not alone in her endeavour.

For a performer in her sixties, Izzard’s Ophelia is quite affecting, particularly when she turns her distress and confusion into broken song; her Hamlet is a live wire, played without much obvious anguish. His observations can be witheringly funny at times. “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables” sets the audience off.

Suzy Izzard: The Tragedy of Hamlet. Photo © Daniel Boud

Hamlet’s famous speeches flow naturally from the preceding lines, with no obvious girding of the loins before “To be, or not to be”. Izzard/Hamlet (the personalities blend, somewhat) frequently breaks the fourth wall with knowing glances. We’re all in this together.

The last-act sword fight lacks a little energy and savagery, and the tragic impact of the scene is somewhat blunted by the rush to reach the finish. Yet the final image – the poisoned Hamlet pinned against the back wall – lingers in the mind.

This may not be the most revelatory of stagings, but it is a formidable display of theatrical skill and nerve: a reminder that, in the right hands, Shakespeare’s words are all you really need.

Izzard: The tragedy of Hamlet plays at Sydney Opera House until 21 June. It then plays the Powerhouse, Brisbane (24-27 June), the Fairfax Studio, Melbourne (30 June-12 July), the Heath Ledger Theatre, Perth (27, 28 July) and Canberra Theatre Centre, 31 July–1 August.