Peruvian theatre company Teatro La Plaza offer a loose collection of highlights from Shakespeare’s play in this scattershot but endearing adaptation. A knowledge of the play isn’t essential given that barely half a dozen scenes are included: the emphasis is on the players, all of whom have Down’s syndrome. Director and writer Chela De Ferrari has engaged her young cast with workshops and a few ideas spectacularly ignite. Hamlet’s madness is termed a ‘condition’ and his meditation on suicide reworked as a questioning of whether it’s worth being alive when sidelined by society.

This Hamlet is a spokesperson for equality, while a manipulative Claudius seeks to play others ‘like a flute’; there’s real wit in the way that Ferrari repurposes segments of the play to illuminate the concerns of her cast. There’s a pointed moment where able-bodied audience members are cast as trees in the background, revealing the often spurious nature of ‘inclusion’; such uproarious moments artfully skewer ‘ableist’ thinking in the arts. With most of the text posted missing, this production is marred by careless subtitling and poor translations, but the play really isn’t the thing in this particular Hamlet; it’s the heroic performers that the audience get behind.

Teatro La Plaza: Hamlet, Lyceum Theatre, Friday 16 August, 7.30pm, Saturday 17 August, 2.30pm, 7.30pm, as part of Edinburgh International Festival; main picture: Jess Shurte.