The Winter's Tale is one of the most problematic of Shakespeare's plays. A frustratingly-uneven combination of classical tragedy and comedy, it shifts between gripping drama and scenes which border on the inconsequential. Mark Thomson's production for the Lyceum presents it warts and all.

The first act (which is the best section of the play by a distance) is, in essence, an ancient Greek tragedy. Leontes, King of Sicilia, is overcome by a misplaced jealousy. Certain that his pregnant wife, Hermione, is having an affair with his long-time friend, Polixenes (King of Bohemia), he descends rapidly into an all-consuming rage which brings about the death of his son and his wife, and the banishment of his baby daughter.

In the peculiarly structured second half, the play loses its thread. Matters of great importance in the story of the now penitent tyrant Leontes are merely reported, secondhand, as if Shakespeare had suddenly turned Brechtian, disdaining the lives of the rich and powerful. Yet, other, near pointless, events - such as the light-hearted celebrations of the shepherds and farm labourers - are played out at tedious length.

If the drama is, in the truest sense, a "problem play'', Thomson's presentation never quite finds a solution. There are, however, some fine moments of theatre as it attempts to come to grips with the Bard's awkward script.

Liam Brennan's playing of Leontes, in particular, has a deeply impressive grasp of the need to turn sharply at the key moments of the drama. Leontes's emotions - suspicion, jealousy, rage, regret, repentance - are universal ones, albeit that they explode on the grand scale. Brennan turns from violent anger to anguished despair in an instant, portraying perfectly his character's moral frailty.

Opposite him, Selina Boyack is a wonderfully self-assured Hermione, righteous in her indignation, all the better to contrast with the terrible inconstancy of her husband. Elsewhere, Una McLean is on top form as the outraged courtier Paulina, while Alan Francis squeezes more amusement than one might have thought possible out of the comic rogue Autolycus.

However, it takes more than some fine performances to resolve the play's structural conundrum, and Robin Don's overwrought beige set and inexplicable, mud-spattered costumes are needless distractions. Add to that the unpleasant gimmick of a prologue performed by a wheelchair-bound dummy representing Professor Stephen Hawking, and the Lyceum has created a production which is as imbalanced as the play itself.

Until October 20