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There are many differences between the original story and Emma Rice’s adaptation. In fact, it is so rarely performed. This is a wild production which combines comedy with tragedy to tell the story of Cymbeline king.

This adaptation uses electrifying live music to highlight the changes in the plot, describing the misunderstandings, intimacies, betrayals and battles that suffer the family’s king. Cymbeline had two sons who were kidnapped at birth, and to complicate things, Imogen his only daughter, has married against his wishes and he has banished her new husband, Postumus, from Court. Cymbeline’s second wife is simply wicked, as is her son Cloten who wishes that he had married Imogen.

One of the principal differences is that while Emma Rice’s adaptation uses a modern and simple language, with few Shakespeare verses, in the original play the language is dense and archaic with long descriptions of emotions giving a strong complexity to the plot, and creating a glorious mix of contradictions. In other words, Emma Rice’s adaptation is acculturated to such an extent that the king's tragic situation feels like a modern dysfunctional family.

Moreover, in the adapted play there is the invented character of Joan, a woman with blond wig and outrageously pulled-up red socks and sandals, she introduces and explicates the plot and banters with the audience, sharing holiday snapshots.

In addition to the character of Joan, other modern devices run throughout the production. For example, in Shakespeare play Imogen and Posthumus exchange a ring and a bracelet promising to wear them forever, but in the adapted story instead of a bracelet they exchange a watch.

Also, another difference between the plays is that Imogen’s identifying mark in the original play is a mole on the chest, but in the adaptation is a mole on the buttock.

Likewise, in Emma Rice’s adaptation Imogen's servant Pisanio is...