Cert 15 99mins Stars 4

Sex, class, race, money and power are drawn together in a suffocating corset of ambition in this intense period drama.

Florence Pugh gives a remarkably rich performance of perfect poise and earthy passion as the newly wed lady of the manor. 

The wedding night of the English beauty doesn’t go as expected. And when she takes a lover from a household of spying servants and looming groomsmen, murder most foul follows.

This is a chilly English Victorian-era take on a Russian novel inspired in part by Shakespeare’s Scottish play, MacBeth. The costumes, names, setting and language may change, but the power of the drama lives on.

It’s staged on the wild moors of my native North-east and riffs on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Local accents add flavour to some ripe Anglo Saxon language.

Beautifully photographed and impeccably played by all, this is a Shakespearean experience for those who don’t like Shakespeare.