JACOBEAN revenge thrillers are suddenly all the rage in York.

First comes Six Lips Theatre's catwalk makeover for John Webster's macabre incestuous chiller The Duchess Of Malf. Next, Mark France's Well-fangled Theatre will make their debut with Thomas Middleton’s darkly comic, anarchic and licentious The Revenger's Tragedy in early December.

Where Greek tragedies tend to report the bloodiest deeds in exhaustive detail, rather than show them, Jacobean dramas are explicit, like the Quentin Tarantino films of today. In Six Lips' hands, the Milanese dark suits worn by men and women alike are as sharp as the knives, the electronic Euro soundscapes by Calvin Miller are sharper still, and the catwalk and white shirts are splattered with blood at the finale, in the manner of Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.

On a strip of a black and white traverse stage, flanked by audience seats with welcoming cards, as if for a fashion show, Wallace's carnal production combines choreographed physical theatre with her screen projections of society/celebrity gossip and fashion spreads, to complement in-your-face acting that carries the characters' smell of fear.

Being Six Lips, for whom language is sometimes a barrier rather than an aid, the catwalk is no cakewalk for the audience, but the company does strut its melodramatic stuff with a Jagger swagger, thereby avoiding a fashion faux pas.

You may wonder why everyone is so roughly and heavily made up, both men and women; it's probably something from European or Japanese theatre.

You will definitely have to work out who's playing who, and that's not easy when by design – spoiler alert – the women are sharing out the role of the Duchess, but once you settle into Roxanna Klimaszewska's streamlined adaptation with its Everywoman Duchess, the underlying themes of social inequality, abuse of women and a strangulating class system break through.

The women – Lily Luty, Donna Kitching, Sophie Collerton, Stacey Johnstone and Roxanna Klimaszewska – are suitably contrasting in demeanour and performance style, but always putting on an appearance, as the widowed Duchess must do to survive, with the consequent echoes of the fashion industry.

Stuart Freestone's scheming malcontent, Bosola, has everything of the night about him, his face forever looking at the world askew. James Rotchell rather overcooks Duke Ferdinand's anger, leaving nowhere to go when he loses his mind, when less is often more in acting, as witnessed by Dan Hardy's steward, Antonio. Tom Straszewski's Cardinal sinner does a splendid job of giving the church a bad name.

After this three-night premiere in a York pub back room, Six Lips are contemplating touring their chic and bleak production, so watch this space for further fashion statements.

The Duchess Of Malfi, Six Lips Theatre, The Fleeting Arms, Gillygate, York, 7.30pm tonight. Box office: sixlips.co.uk or on the door