There are at least three somewhat puzzling questions to ask about Shakespeare's Villains, the touring one-hander from Steven Berkoff.

Where's the enfant terrible, the angry young radical? It's not just that Berkoff's now a portly middle-aged man, albeit one fond of the big sweeping gesture. He doesn't seem bitter, for instance, and there's no evidence of his furious Zionism, even when he's talking about Shylock.

Why the title? Much of the time he's not talking about villains or even about other Shakespeare characters. And when Berkoff does stick with characters they aren't necessarily bad boys. A lot of people wouldn't regard Shylock as a true villain, or Oberon, or Hamlet.

And why has the show been so widely acclaimed and won so many awards? It's good, but not that good. Considering the thin payback in terms of new insights or enrichment it's a bit austere and demanding.

Having said all that, there's a lot to admire. Berkoff's interesting and gossipy when he goes into something on Gielgud and Larry Olivier, but there's not enough of it. He even touches on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair – when he's talking about Coriol****.

And it makes you think when he claims that your typical Shakespearean villain invariably alternates between sex and violence.

He's funny on Hamlet, when it comes to the appearance of the Ghost on the battlements, and when the Prince himself kills Polonius – it's for this murder that Berkoff includes him as a villain. Oberon makes it on the villain list because of his pioneering work in poisons.

It's an alarming bit – for some – when Berkoff claims that "Nobody could love a critic". There's at least one person, and a lot of others surely, hoping that he's wrong.

But despite the points of interest the show is, taken as a whole, disappointing.

Alan Geary