SET on Midsummer’s Eve in Sweden— a time for partying, rule-breaking and indulging in the forbidden — August Strindberg described his 1888 play Miss Julie as “a naturalistic tragedy.”  

Immersed in a world where the lower orders  and the ruling classes co-exist in a seemingly perpetual dependency, his most popular work homes in on a fateful night in an aristocratic home, where madness is in the air and the servants revel in abandon.  

During it, the upper-class Miss Julie — in a story that almost tells itself — rocks the social code to its foundations when she seduces the handsome valet Jean.  

Strindberg is no ordinary playwright and Howard Brenton’s excellent version of the play confirms the Swede as a master of uncompromising eloquence. His language is thrilling, the power balance continuously shifts and the intricacies of sex and class are explored in ferocious detail.

The confusion of love and hate, desire and repulsion, control and submission, lusts and social conformity engenders an anarchic hell, harnessed only by the steadfast “I-know-my-place” realism of Jean’s fellow servant and fiancee Kristin.

Church-going and patient, she reminds us how society and its values ultimately triumph over the passions of the individual.

Charlotte Hamblin as Miss Julie perfectly captures the selfish and exploitative nature of a young woman who expects to be number one but dissolves into rage and anguish as the male sex again escapes conquest. Somehow, it always reclaims the upper hand.  

James Sheldon gives an immaculate performance as the supercharged but rigidly controlled valet Jean, whose continual battle is to retain self-regard in a world that treats him as an underling.  

But the surprise of the production is Dorothea Myer-Bennett’s Kristin. She portrays her as Jean’s active sexual partner and enhances the play’s dramatic impact as a challenging force rather than the more traditional subservient nonentity.

Tom Littler’s direction is beautifully judged, with designer Louie Whitemore’s fine working kitchen rooted in realism, while the sounds of merriment from the partying locals, carefully deployed, represent a careless and cruel world in which the protagonists, despite their vigour, are merely bit-part players.

As a unique exploration of human complexity, this attention-grabbing version of Strindberg’s play certainly holds its own with the best.

Runs until June 1, box office: jermynstreettheatre.co.uk