SOUTHEND Shakespeare Company has embarked on an enterprise of almost crazy ambition, and to judge from the first fifty per cent of the project, it has carried it off brilliantly.

Henry VI: The Descent into Chaos, begins around the coffin of great warrior king and empire builder Henry V, as a traumatised nation attempts to adjust to his sudden death.

It ends as his gentle, broken, successor Henry VI stumbles his way through the debris and corpses of a London, torn apart by rebellion, with the words: “Yet may England curse my wretched reign.”

Between these two poles, Shakespeare plots the tragedy of a nation’s fall from power and glory into the pit of a civil war that will tear it apart in bloodshed and chaos.

It is a sorry tale of weak leadership and warring factions that offers endless parallels for today’s politics. Despite the sub-title, chaos is the last word to describe Michael Clements’s superbly orchestrated and fast-moving production.

No one would describe Henry VI as a theatrical comfort zone, but the panache with which director and cast mount the first part of this bloody pageant is certainly exhilarating.

The three Henry VI plays have been trimmed to remove confusing detail, but the narrative sweep and the wonders of Shakespeare’s language, already apparent in these early works, remain intact.

Credit should go to the entire cast. Their teamwork ensures the pace never falters.

James Carter creates a deeply sympathetic portrait of King Henry, the wise weakling cursed with the ability to understand everything but the inability to do anything about it.

Tracey-Anne Bourne cuts a glowering presence as his queen, Margaret, and there is a star in the making in the charismatic Elena Clements, as a hell-raising Joan of Arc.

Dave Lobley, as the rebel Jack Cade, also scores in a role that is the play’s nearest thing to light relief.

But whatever the Descent into Chaos may lack in laughs, it more than makes up for in the excitement of watching as Southend Shakespeare Company make history happen.

HENRY VI – THE DESCENT INTO CHAOS Palace Theatre, Dixon Studio, Westcliff. 7.45pm. Sat mat 3pm. Until Nov 28 This alternates with Henry VI The Triumph of Evil.