REVIEW: The Merchant of Venice - at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, various dates until Wednesday, September 2, 2015.

MESMERISING! That is the massive metal ball swinging on a steel wire at the side of the stage. Forget your Newton’s Cradle, this far from stationary sphere was in perpetual eye-catching mode unlike this production which didn’t fully deliver.

It’s not an Executive Ball Clicker and the purpose of this lone pendulum didn’t really click either. Perhaps resonant with the ‘Swinging Sixties’ style of clothing, maybe even relating to the sexual preferences of one of the play’s main protagonists - which clearly swung both ways, or simply indicating how fortunes can be won and lost.

And that big ball was largely it as stage adornment goes, apart from an occasional chair, a vast amount of paper money and the three caskets, also suspended on wires, so vital to Portia and her suitors. The set itself was simply a mass of shiny steel mirror plates for the floor and a huge mirrored wall… so there was certainly plenty to reflect upon!

When the RSC last staged The Merchant of Venice - four years ago - gondoliers gave way to gamblers with the action switched to the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas and director Rupert Goold’s throw of the dice paid glossy dividends, but few chances appear to have been taken with this latest offering and as a consequence it’s bleaker and a touch downbeat.

Nevertheless Polly Findlay’s new RSC production is still absorbing even though it provides little clue to time and place, and little insight of social divides and religious as well as historical attitudes, but a mainly unsung cast has enough spark to hold it all together - but only just.

Mistrust and hatred between Christian and Jew is made quite clear. But what led to this? And why is Shylock so despised? Makram J Khoury, a distinguished Palestinian-Israeli actor, provides a competent RSC debut but his Shylock isn’t given the freedom to expand the character other than not being liked. Is it for who or what he is?

He may have money but he is downtrodden and often spat upon, and it would seem far from a financial powerhouse in a dowdy blue cardigan and baggy grey trousers.

The understanding of the religious divide, the anti-Semitism, shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Looking around the rest of the cast, many in their RSC debut season, we had Patsy Ferran - who received the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer 2014 for Treasure Island and Blithe Spirit, providing the perfect glimpse of why she is held in such high regard - especially the moment when she comes to realise her husband Bassanio, entertainingly played by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, has another love in his life… the merchant, Antonio (Jamie Ballard), even though he might soon be a pound of flesh lighter!

This marriage triangle is dealt with well and the considerably experienced Ballard is in fine form. Gone is the regular man of courage when facing Shylock’s determination to extract his pound of flesh - instead a spell-binding simpering, whimpering terror-struck being far from the confident businessman who had secured the contentious bond.

Enjoyable performances also emanated from Scarlett Brookes, as Shylock’s mixed-up daughter Jessica, and Nadia Albina’s elfin-like Nerissa, while comedy pops up alongside tragedy as regularly as the pendulum heads from left to right, with endearing offerings in particular from Brian Protheroe’s foppish Aragon, a suitor to Portia, along with a streetwise Gratiano (Ken Nwosu) and Tim Samuels’ money-loving Gobbo - whose surprise arrival via a seat in the audience evoked much amusement - but the painted clown face was a bit of a mystery.

A fair bit to enjoy, but slightly under-weight with a few matters of concern too. Thoughts seem to sway both ways - much, it would seem, like that massive metal ball…