Jonathan Munby’s production of Shakespeare’s most roundedly accessible play was met with delight by a committed audience, corralled inside the Globe’s thatched amphitheatre. The main crowd-puller is Jonathan Pryce, fresh from his watery-eyed turn as Cardinal Wolsey in Wolf Hall, here playing Shylock.

The temptation for glib comparisons is hard to resist: both Shylock and Wolsey wield immense power over others while at the same time remaining uniquely vulnerable. Yet while Pryce the Cardinal was all resignation and sadness, Pryce the Jew is pure, righteous rage.

The Merchant of Venice is like a taster menu at a high-end restaurant. When done superlatively (as this production is), we’re treated to alternate explosions of comedy and tragedy, tenderness and tension, buffoonery and philosophical profundity. But the success of Munby’s version lies in the fact that these flavours never quite balance. The jarring contrast between each pair of scenes is like a freezing lake after a sauna, accentuating their contrast to unsettling effect.

The tale of a forfeited loan that the debtor agrees to repay with his own flesh arrives with two questions. One: where on the axis between tragic hero and Faginesque caricature will Pryce’s Shylock land? Two: how deep is the love between the merchant Antonio and the profligate Bassanio, off to woo the heiress Portia with his friend’s borrowed cash? This complex reading by a universally good cast provides satisfying (and satisfyingly ambiguous) answers to both. Portia (Rachel Pickup) and Nerissa (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) are a particular highlight, sorting out the whole testosterone-curdled mess with lashings of gold and guile.

Emotionally we emerge on the side of Shylock. The Venetian cool kids, though appealing enough as individuals, become a venomous, self-righteous mob when arrayed against the outcast.Themes of identification and identity, plus the true nature of Shylock’s tragedy are further hinted at by brief passages in Yiddish and Hebrew, plus a startling coda involving forced baptism that sears itself into the memory.

A hugely worthwhile night out.