There’s been a murder in Jacobean London. A man dressed in fool’s motley was witnessed at the scene. But who was the player inside the costume: the famed William Kempe, or another man, so associated with his powerful patron he’s known only as “Richard’s Fool”? Both men stand accused, and we are the jury – aided in our deliberations by flashback scenes from a bawdy thespian tavern.

There’s a lot to unpick in Kiera Joyce’s original script. It’s centred on identity, in the most fundamental way: what it means to play a character, whether costumes are ever truly shed, and how seductive it can be to let someone else write your life’s lines for you. We learn a little, too, about the alien morality of the day, when “house harlot” was a recognised role and the burden of (dis)proof lay with the accused.

The Jacobean-inspired language does demand your concentration, and it would help if Joyce repeated key facts a couple of times: if you fail to follow a twist in the plot, it’s quite hard to find your way back. But the mix is leavened by a touch of humour, and a joy-filled impromptu dance scene is a particularly well-timed delight. The large ensemble cast has no weak links, there are literary allusions for the clued-in to enjoy, and – though the characters are necessarily drawn in bold strokes – they have enough surprising facets to save them from stereotype.

What’s lacking, just a bit, is the weight of consequence. We never meet the victim, nor hear all that much about him, so it’s unclear in this morally-ambiguous world how much we should mourn his passing. And though our votes as jurors could condemn a man to death, we’re never quite confronted with the awe of that responsibility. It feels like we’re being set up for an impossible choice, but in the end we’re let off rather lightly.

But we do get to learn, at least in the ending I saw, whether our decision was right or wrong. As with all the best mysteries, the answer’s hidden in plain sight – and when I spotted it just a couple of seconds before the big reveal, I felt a genuine sense of tragedy. Bleak at times, sunny at others, A Murder In Motley is always entertaining… and bears its complex message well. A slick and tight production of a subtly thoughtful script? You’d be a fool to miss it.