Could a zebra and a horse get together? Because, you know, there are ligers out there. And would you call it a zeborse or a hora?

This is what I was thinking when I was watching the British theatre company Cheek by Jowl’s adaptation of the 17th century revenge drama by John Ford, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. I think I was supposed to be a bit wowed by all the red and the dancing men in suits… and all the red. But I wasn’t. I guess it was the illicit bro-sis lovin’ plot line that got me thinking about the infinitely more interesting horse-zebra scenario.

Seriously, why should I take this play seriously? There is nothing in this production for contemporary audiences to chew on. And as for the blow to the head misogyny, well, I won’t start because I won’t stop.

To be fair, and even this might be overly generous, some of the staging was kind of okay-ish; like the full ensemble living tableaux inspired by kitschy Mexicana Virgin Mary paraphernalia and Carravagio, the bad boy painter of the era. But that was about it.

So when it came to an end and out they came for their applause I couldn’t not clap because that’s just rude but I didn’t think it was worth the minor hand strain so I was content to limp-wristedly tap my rolled-up program against my thigh.

As much as he divides audiences, credit where credit’s due, Baz Lurhman’s radicool modern day transposing of Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet really was radical. It worked because the family feud at the heart of the drama was re-imagined as contemporary media empires and the streets today still run red with creeds and colours clashing.

As for ‘Tis Pity, well, it was derivative even in its day. So you’d think any half-way-progressive company daring to bring a piece like this into the now would turn it on its head and douse it with some much needed irony. No dice. Instead Cheek by Jowl chose to marry derivative play with derivative staging and the result is a charmless, toothless mongrel.

But older, bourgeois audiences lap it up. If you want to hear them oozing, “well wasn’t that just a bit racy!” there’s a formula to follow. Take ye olde revenge drama give it some pizzazz with punk-cabaret stylin’ (slutty maids, asymmetrical hair cuts, add a touch of red and then soak everything in red) and BAM! there you have it, big-buck theatre ready to spoon-feed down the gaping pie holes of antipodean culture-starved bobos. $ha-$hing. Now, back to Paris.

For the 7 to 9 people who haven’t seen a red-wash set design, this production might be a sensory overload having just joined us from the pre-Soviet era.

Sure, it’s a festival program, so short-run international pieces are going to be charging a premium but this company has tickets on itself if it thinks this show is worth $90 a ticket. Apparently Sydneysiders are willing to part with this kind of cash because it’s British.

Unless you’re a bit of a scholar, much of the verse is arcane and hard to follow; at least it was for me. That’s kind of expected with 17th century scripts. Bu