PERICLES is an ancient Greek drama, filtered through the pen of William Shakespeare and now adapted by York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster for the company’s Youth Theatre.

This epic play is not staged very often – your reviewer has never seen it before in 27 years in the darkness – but its whirlwind journey through strange lands and across perilous oceans makes it ripe for a young cast, especially when heaving, cutting and a reduced running time makes it far sharper.

All the better for that cast of 36, the 16 to 21-year-olds were given the chance to perform in the 860-seat main auditorium last Thursday to Saturday: a suitably expansive setting for Pericles’s troubled travels, with a wooden, nautical set by Kelly Jago to match.

Director Julian Ollive, the Theatre Royal’s education associate, summed up the adaptation thus: “Short, sharp with quick edits and transitions telling an action-packed, compelling story with shipwrecks, pirates, brothels, people re-united and people coming back from the dead.”

Shakespeare’s tale was told just as briskly as Ollive’s summary, its short scenes full of urgent energy, individual dilemmas and plenty of chorus work.

Scene changes were as quick as a lightning flash, aided by the flexibility of Jago’s set, which could be a ship one minute, a red-lit brothel the next (with a particular fruity musical commentary by Craig Vear for that memorable scene).

Joe Feeney’s brooding Pericles, Leola Cruden Smith’s Marina, Abigail McFarlane’s Thaisa and Lydia Onyett’s scene-stealing Simonides all rose to the heights of their contrasting roles.

Ensemble setpieces, notably for a martial arts tournament sequence and the centrepiece storm, were well executed, although actors struggled to be heard above the raging seas. Indeed, voice projection overall should be addressed before the next main-house show.