THERE is, of course, nothing new about setting a famous play in a period which is totally different to the one in which the playwright envisaged the action taking place.

Even historical dramas can be shifted to a wholly new epoch by a director keen to bring a fresh appreciation to the piece.

However, the process can be a hazardous one, as a colleague who regularly reviews productions in the York area recently explained to me.

Being a journalist of discretion, she did not include the following incident in her review, and to protect any of the parties from embarrassment, she also declined to give the Diary full details of the production involved. But the following should serve as a warning to actors and directors alike of the perils of period-swapping.

My colleague was reviewing a play set originally in past times, and indeed based on historic events.

In the best traditions of these works, the action included a climactic battle scene, in which the main players would no doubt originally have been clad in armour of some kind.

But not on this occasion. In this production the events were "moved" to the present day, and therefore the warriors were dressed as modern soldiers. Not only that, one of the main commanders had changed gender, and was portrayed in this scene by a young woman in combat gear. Pretty radical, one might say.

Now, being a battle scene the players couldn't just stand around declaiming their lines - they had to move about and do things, and part of that entailed our commander bending over and picking something up.

Unfortunately her combat trousers were of the variety which the more fashion conscious assure me are "hipsters", and the result was that the audience in the intimate venue got a full view of her underwear, which had emblazoned on it the words "I Love Boys".

The result was, I am told, to slightly dissipate the dramatic tension of the scene.

But, I asked my colleague, could this not have been a deliberate ploy in itself, to bring a whole new dimension to the action?

After all, had not the BBC done something of this kind in their recent reinterpretation of the history of Rome?

Sadly not, for she had checked afterwards with the director. Still, it may yet prove to be an inspiration for future productions.

Updated: 08:42 Wednesday, January 04, 2006