The Chocolate Factory is probably best known for its dazzling chamber musical productions (Sunday in the Park with George; Little Shop of Horrors), so unless they had uncovered a hitherto secret side to Jacobean playwright John Webster, this show was going to be a daring change of tack. And so it proves. Jonathan Munby's ambitious and intelligent production plunges with relish into Webster's dark vision of murder, vengeance and comprehensive corruption.

The production begins and ends wittily, with a janitor mopping up the mess. What unfolds in between, though, would be a test for any mop and bucket. When Bracciano and Vittoria begin an adulterous affair, they set in motion a disastrous chain of events. Gruesome murders ensue: a poisoned picture; a graphically broken neck. But what really interests Webster is the corruption and self-interest that events reveal: nearly everyone here is duplicitous, on the make or bent on revenge - rank, reputation or supposed reverence notwithstanding (the cardinal is one of the worst). Everyone protests that they have honourable motives for their wrongdoing. And the whole thing is engineered by Vittoria's brother, Flamineo, a Machiavellian malefactor who spies in the mess a chance to grab for himself a slice of power and wealth.

It is a deliberately convoluted plot, as Webster wants us to lose our bearings in this slippery world of half-truths. But Munby and his cast deliver it with admirable clarity and manage, for the most part, the uncomfortable mix of dark satire, grisly excess and improbable disguise. The action is played out in traverse, on a narrow platform between two banks of audience, with shafts of light illuminating the dark deeds. On this strip of stage, the cast creates the impression of a society deeply mired in suspicion and hypocrisy, with every encounter conducted under prying eyes, and scenes bleeding into one another. What the production lacks is a real sense of hair-raising nastiness: that chilling and increasingly claustrophobic unease. But it does suggest the velocity of corruption, as the characters are sucked towards destruction. And Claire Price gives a particularly lovely performance as the proud and unrepentant Vittoria, while Aidan McArdle (pictured) is compelling as the sinister Flamineo, wading deeper and deeper into depravity with glee.

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