THIS is an absolute monster of a production, a study in Gothic darkness that is as dark and dank as a dripping dungeon wall.

Choreographer David Bintley’s fascination with the genre has produced a tale of brooding menace that propels this ancient folk tale into the Frankenstein league… and perhaps beyond.

The role of the fiend himself therefore makes great demands on the performer and Yasuo Atsuji is most certainly not found wanting. However, this being a study in human nature – after all, that’s what this story is essentially about – Atsuji is obliged to run the whole gamut of emotion, from the vile creature with a reptile brain that knows no mercy, to that of a sensitive being whose heart can be broken as easily as a flower upon a wheel.

Indeed at times, such is the despair of Atsuji’s Beast that we cannot help but pity him, this tortured soul locked into a hideous body.

At the other end of the scale, we have Momoko Hirata’s beautiful Belle, a vision of fragility that nevertheless almost conceals the bravery she must summon in order to commit herself to the Beast.

Bintley’s ballet brims with marvellously vigorous ensemble work. Right from the start, as the hunters viciously slash and despoil the wildwood, the scene is set for a piece that grabs you around the throat.

In an extremely moving sequence, the hunters’ mindless, callous rampage is halted by the Woodsman (Rory Mackay), the very personification of the mythical Green Man.

At this point, Bintley’s obvious preoccupation with the eternal disconnection between Man and Nature borders on despair.

Jonathan Payn gives a wonderfully sensitive portrayal as Belle’s merchant father. He must make some truly awful choices but the gravity of his situation is thankfully leavened somewhat by James Barton’s magnificently porcine Monsieur Cochon, whose courting of Belle’s sister might be said to be a case of literally casting pearls before swine.

The designs by Philip Prowse are stunning, especially the castle walls and crags that seem to ooze menace and putrefaction in equal measure. They mirror the tormented face of the Beast, made all the more forbidding by Mark Jonathan’s subtle and deft use of lighting.

Underpinning everything is the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under the steady baton of conductor Philip Ellis. He has done a fine job with Glenn Buhr’s music, a score that ranges from perky piccolo passages of birdsong to crashing waves of orchestration that give warning of the darker passages.

Nevertheless, we should not forget the harried animal that provides the touch paper to this tale. And Karla Doorbar makes for a superbly convincing Vixen which reminds us all that our compassionate gene can still radiate light into the murkiest depths of humankind.

This production of Beauty and the Beast moves from the Birmingham Hippodrome to Sadler’s Wells Theatre on Tuesday, October 14.