Punch And Judy, Young Vic, London

Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside – don't we? Inside the Young Vic, the sky is cloudy, the sand is black and polluted, and the arrival of Mr Punch is hardly reassuring. The thing is, he's not a puppet any more: he's the star attraction in a circus of blood and we, the audience, are ringside. The Ringmaster (a sinister, top-hatted and excellent Ashley Holland) promises a ceremony of sadism and death at the "altar of pain" and, on cue from a riotous cacophony of demented woodwinds and brass, he delivers.

The brilliance of Daniel Kramer's staging for ENO at the Young Vic lies in the way he has incorporated all the iconic imagery of the Punch and Judy puppet show, mixed in a double serving of commedia dell'arte, and turned the whole confection into a celebration of Mr Punch's psychopathic nature. Stephen Pruslin's libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera may invite us to weep for Punch's "unfathomable and inexpressible sorrow", but his quest for love is not offered as an explanation for his murderous persona. He is what he is: "demon kind".

Indeed, Pretty Polly (Gillian Keith), object of his desires, is – in Kramer's vision – most definitely a lust, not a love, interest. Done up like a blow-up sex doll, she pouts and grinds, her rejection of Punch immoveable until he cheats the hangman and becomes immortal. She will, of course, be his next victim, and her scatological coloratura always culminates in what could be a premonition of her death-cry.

The cyclic, ritualised, form of the opera has never been clearer. Before each murder, the amazing Andrew Shore refreshes his make-up and dons the black rubber gloves of his craft; afterwards, he offers his grotesque little song like a malevolent Archie Rice. He is, after all, an entertainer. An open grave awaits his victims. Birtwistle provides a vocal chorale for each. And music director Edward Gardner leads his dazzling ensemble to the next of the composer's "loony toons".

I doubt you could ask for more from a staging. Surtitles would help decipher some of the verbal distortions, but clarity of purpose has never been sharper. That's the way to do it.

To 27 April (020-7922 2922)