Led by Peter Evans, Bell Shakespeare’s Artistic Director, The Poetry of Violence is a performance-lecture that takes a good-humoured, unpatronising approach to enlightening its audience. It pitches to the midpoint, neither assuming total ignorance nor familiarity.

Darius Williams, Peter Evans (background) and Madeline Li: The Poetry of Violence. Photo © Brett Boardman

At a time when violence in theatre is being more deeply interrogated, Evans contends that, though Shakespeare’s works frequently depict acts of savagery, they are seldom, if ever, gratuitous.

To illustrate his point, a company of actors delivers an intelligently compiled and arranged selection of monologues and extracts from plays both familiar (Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet) and relatively obscure, such as the brutal Titus Andronicus and the seldom-performed Henry VI – a speech from which serves as Evans’ first example of Shakespeare’s way with words:

“This battle fares like to the morning’s war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.”

Performed by Lucy Bell, James Evans, Madeline Li, Nigel Poulton, Jessica Tovey and Darius Williams, the extracts aren’t delivered in the fullest throat, but they’re...