GIVEN Bernard Shaw's rudeness about Shakespeare, it is certainly generous of the RSC to lavish so much of its talent on this production.

As originally written, it lasted about 10 hours, to be seen over two or three nights and is nothing less than GBS's vision of the evolution of Man from The Garden of Eden (4004BC) through to 31,920 AD.

David Fielding has 'filleted' the original down to just over four hours and it is fitting that the production opens with a giant photograph of Shaw dissolving to skeletal bare bones before which we enter a cosmic experimental laboratory where his ponderous arguments are to be played out.

That they are played out brilliantly is due to Fielding's skillful work of adaptation and direction and some very fine acting from a strong cast headed by Janet Whiteside as a most beguiling Serpent, Paul Greenwood (especially as a very recognisable career politician), Julian Curry (a Shavian traveller into strange lands) and Bruce Purchase, the claret-drinking flirtatious elderly scourge of all pretty girls.

But there's no overcoming the fact that Shaw at his worst is a pretentious, over-blown bore whose sometimes engaging arguments are better fitted for the debating hall than the stage.

And when designer Andrew Walsh includes Adam and Eve in white combinations, with the 'naughty bits' drawn on by felt-tip pen plus a set of 32nd century children and ancients in white boiler-suits, sheets and white face-paint, the view that this was a play better left un-revived is reinforced.

Back to Methuselah continues in the repertoire at The Other Place.