Greg Hicks in a capoeira -styled adaptation of one of the great Greek tragedies: it seems a wilfully eclectic way to start a year. Yet the combination is not gratuitous. Hicks, always an actor of magnetic, wiry physicality, has long been fascinated with the Brazilian discipline that is part-dance, part-martial art, part-spiritual training. And Euripides' treatment of Greek legend resonates well with the partly mythologised figure of Besouro (Manoel Henrique, 1897-1924).

As the god Dionysus offered his mostly female followers transcendence through chemical- and dance-instilled intoxication, so here Besouro offers dignity through capoeira to oppressed Afro-Brazilians, and is thus a focus of resistance and a threat. As King Pentheus of Thebes is incited by Dionysus to attend a bacchic rite in disguise and is there torn to pieces, so here Gordilho (Hicks), the police chief of Salvador de Bahia, is persuaded by Besouro to pimp himself up and go to a roda (basically, a capoeira jam), from which he does not emerge alive. The correspondences in Frances Viner's script go into more detail but crucially it is not necessary to know the Greek original in order to appreciate In Blood ; the parallels simply offer added value.