The Tempest, Old Vic, London

A noisy beginning, an exquisite ending

Bang! Michael Grandage's production of The Tempest begins with its coup de théâtre. Thunder and lightning crash, dark clouds billow as the storm rages about the ship carrying the treacherous King of Naples and Duke of Milan – and then, at Prospero's command, all disappears in an instant, sucked into the place from which it came; his magic book. Thereafter, all is light, both on the brightly illuminated stage and in the clarity of direction. The verse-speaking is crisp and the play is full of the sense of wonder at magic performed in the open day.

Twelve years after his dukedom was stolen by his brother, Derek Jacobi's Prospero still bubbles with anger when telling his daughter, Miranda, her history. Though his court is a stage within the stage, emphasising Prospero's role as the director of the island's spells, Jacobi is no serene sorcerer. His tension at finally confronting his enemies is matched by his distress at parting from his child, even though she is making the marriage he has arranged.

When he gives her to Ferdinand, the line, "She is thine own'' does not sound benevolent, but heartbroken. The performance on the whole lacks majesty, and the big speech in which Prospero abjures his powers sounds like a series of effects rather than emotions. But Jacobi's final soliloquy, in which he intimately addresses the audience, asking our pardon (the speeches have been rejigged a bit), is exquisite, as if the magician, finally putting off his anguish along with his magic, is surprised and humbled to find himself, once again, human.

When the play opened in Sheffield in November, one critic wrote that the problem with making Prospero the director of the show is that nothing can ever go wrong. Given the chronicles of the theatre, this seems an idealism bordering on dementia – much is indeed wrong with this Tempest. Claire Price's Miranda, for instance, instead of spending the past dozen years with only spirits for company, seems to have been playing hockey with a lot of jolly girls.

Louis Hilyer's Caliban, a mud-covered man of prosaic appearance, howls and sulks and never arouses our pity. Daniel Evans's Ariel, though a seductive singer, keeps his feet literally too near the ground (two helpers support his merely decorative wings) and metaphorically too far off it, pirouetting archly as if to show his pride in his latest outfit.

Christopher Oram's usual classy design sense has taken a turn for the precious, with Prospero in a long ethnic-chic patchwork coat. The players in the insubstantial pageant are three men in 1950s evening gowns. The clowns Stephano and Trinculo are not funny, especially the former, thuggish and gruff, who seems to be the poor man's version of the nasty usurping duke.

Yet there is much to admire in the warmth of other characterisations. Robert East is impressive as the guilt-racked noble king, and John Nettleton utterly dear as the doddery but dignified Gonzalo. Sam Callis is all sincere, unforced ingenuousness as the young Ferdinand. If, as some gloomy person said, life is a rehearsal for a performance that never happens, this Tempest could be a dress rehearsal for the one we carry in our heads.

To 15 March (020-7928 7616). This review has appeared in earlier editions of the paper