BOB Carlton's brace of spoof Shakespeare rock'n'roll musicals went down so well at Harrogate Theatre that artistic director Rob Swain decided to add his own variation on the theme.

After The Tempest took on a B-movie twist in Carlton's Return To The Forbidden Planet and Macbeth was transformed into a Machiavellian rock singer in From A Jack To A King, the husband-and-wife team of artistic director Swain and leading lady Shelly Willetts have sent Hamlet off to the circus in Tears Of A Clown.

"When we did From A Jack To A King, it went down a storm and 'Planet' had even better box-office figures, and we kept being asked what we were going to do next," says Rob. "We felt we'd be letting people down if we didn't do another rock'n'roll musical; but we knew Bob had done only two and we didn't want to do The Rocky Horror Show so we thought why not write one ourselves?"

The recipe is familiar: take a Shakespeare plot; add assorted rock and pop hits from Bat Out Of Hell to Thriller, Suspicious Minds to Tears Of A Clown; then season with over-the-top guitar solos. Mix in a new setting - something rotten in the Denmark State Circus perhaps? - and ready, steady, write, a new creation will be complete. Out goes Hamlet the crown prince; in comes Gordon, the prince of clowns.

"The thing that makes these Shakespeare rock spoofs work is where you decide to set them," says Shelly. "In space for Planet'; a rock band in 'Jack'; so we came up with a circus, which I think would work well in the real Hamlet.

"It's that feeling of being in a closed world, with the outside world all around them, as they play their conspiratorial games."

Rob takes this point further. "Consider Hamlet and his 'antic disposition'. Almost from that moment in the play, he's performing; he's either mad or pretending to be mad. It could be said he's using clowning all the time to put on a show."

Rob has selected a cast familiar with the demands of these multi-skilled shows, including Matthew Bowyer as Gordon, Nicola Bolton, Edward York and Shelly herself. Only this time, as well as singing, acting, dancing and playing instruments, they have to perform circus skills, perfected (hopefully) in only three weeks of rehearsal.

If that were not enough of a challenge, Shelly turns up the pressure another notch: "Doing this show is even more difficult than acting in Hamlet because it's a spoof but it can't be pantomime. It has to be intense," she says.

Intense and in tents, what a circus this Hamlet pastiche could be.

Tears Of A Clown, Harrogate Theatre, tonight until October 6. Box office: 01423 502116.