Somehow it does not matter that The Winter's Tale is more complex than any single production can fully realise. As with so much of Shakespeare, we find our breath taken away by the originality of its human relationships, its theatrical situations, its violent emotions and above all its piercing imagery, so that to return to the play in the theatre is often to feel we are experiencing it for the first time.

At Newbury's enchanting Watermill Theatre, the director Edward Hall has been working since the mid-1990s on a series of Shakespeare plays with his all-male Propeller Company, with marvellous results. Propeller is a real company; and its casting of men in women's roles is always startling - never trying to fool us that these are real women, always making us feel anew how these women are coping in a man's world, and sometimes bringing a kind of outsize force to the heroines that makes their qualities mint-fresh. There are many layers of theatrical experience going on here, yet what is most valuable is that these Propeller productions confer an innocence on the plays: nothing here feels too clever, too precious.

I suppose there are imperfections in this production. I find Adam Levy's Paulina too choreographed, the least integrated member of the ensemble. It is revelatory to have both Mamilius and Perdita played by one actor, but Tam Williams is a bit monotonous, especially in Perdita's brink-of-tears expression. Tony Bell brings scampish fun to Autolycus, but does not light up the charm in his words. Yet the play enthrals. Simon Scardifield makes Hermione the play's centre of charm and pathos, and takes time off to play the shepherdess Dorcas with terrific silliness (Jules Werner as the shepherdess Mopsa is even funnier). Richard Clothier, speaking the taxing role of the jealous Leontes with effortless naturalness, lets Shakespeare astound us just by the simplicity with which he utters such images as "There may be in the cup/ A spider steep'd, and one may drink. I have drunk, and seen the spider." We gasp, but he sweeps on.

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