Gareth Armstrong's Shylock

City Hall Theatre

It's not every day in Bermuda that you get to watch a Royal Shakespeare Company actor in full flow as one of the Bard's most enduring and enigmatic characters.

For that reason alone, Gareth Armstrong's "Shylock" a one-man show analysing the role of theatre's most famous Jew and his legacy ? is worth the ticket price.

There is no doubt that Armstrong is an accomplished, highly-watchable actor. When he delivers scenes from The Merchant of Venice, switching characters by the split-second as he leaps around the stage, it is stunning to watch.

The transformation between parts is so dramatic that it is almost hard to believe it is the same person ? everything about his face, his body, his demeanour, seems to change and shift.

Armstrong has a strong stage presence and wonderful, booming Welsh tones, which make him a bewitching performer when delivering the Bard's exquisite lines.

But that doesn't account for the whole of this show. The scenes from the play are used to back up Armstrong's theories about the anti-Semitism inherent in The Merchant of Venice.

The rest of the time he is Tubal, "Shylock's best friend, his only friend" and a minor player in The Merchantwho gets to speak just eight lines, as he keeps reminding us.

The narrator Tubal talks us through both the history of Jews in Europe and their depiction in the theatre. We are even told that Hitler was a fan of The Merchantthough the Fuhrer insisted that Shylock's daughter have a Christian mother, rendering her a non-Jew.

It's all interesting stuff but the way it is presented by Armstrong lacks any kind of cohesion.

Part of the time I feel like I'm back at university, watching a slightly spiced-up lecture on Shakespeare. This isn't a play, by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm not sure Armstrong, the show's author as well its star, really knows what he wants it to be.

He seems to veer from one topic to another without thought ? one minute telling us about the great actors of Shakespeare's time, the next pulling on a ginger wig and a mask to show us how Jews would have been depicted in the past.

Armstrong never seems to get to his point.

There certainly isn't anything new in his contention that The Merchantis an intriguing piece of anti-Semitism. That has been well dissected and debated by academics and others over the years.

It's absolutely worthy to show the audience that we can and should feel sympathy for Shylock ? a man abused and spat at and then forced to become a Christian.

There is also no doubt that there are multiple layers to the play and that the character of Shylock can be viewed and understood in a far wider context than his original 16th century setting.

But I'm not sure that this show is the right way to deliver those messages. Armstrong's passion for his subject is clear to see and very admirable. When he has the right material ? i.e. Shakespeare's lines ? he's mesmerising. When he's talking us through his own mish-mash of ideas, things get messy. And unfortunately, that doesn't make for great theatre.