THE 15th-century morality play Everyman has been adapted for a contemporary audience in this production, which marks Rufus Norris’s debut as artistic director of the National Theatre.

It’s a brave choice, as the allegorical characters of death, worldly goods, good deeds, kin and knowledge have often proved difficult to dramatise convincingly in today’s secular age.

Even so, of all the medieval morality plays, it is the anonymously composed Everyman which has endured, capturing as it does the human and elemental struggle between avarice and altruism.

Carol Ann Duffy’s lively free verse is often comic and insightful as Everyman (Chiwetel Ejiofor, pictured) is indicted for his hedonistic life and indifference to the impoverishment of the world in satirical and pacey rhymes.

Yet the opening scene of Everyman’s 40th birthday party, replete with an epic line of nose candy, does outstay its hedonistic welcome and Duffy at times tries too hard to sound “street.”

The language is occasionally dated and 1980s, as is the representation of Everyman as a Thatcherite, coke-sniffing money man.

It may be of course that such types are always with us, yet herein lies the interpretive problem. Everyman, as the title suggests, is all of us and it is we who are being taken to task — not some jerk we can all safely dismiss and consign to a Canary Wharf dustbin.

Possibly a more satirical and political production, particularly as the election looms, might have been more topical and brought Everyman bang up to date or at least given a nod to the everydayness of Everyman’s flaws.

Two performances — from Dermot Crowley as a laconic Death and Kate Duchene as God/Gooddeeds, who also happens to be a cleaning woman — stand out. But that’s probably because they have some of the best lines.

Another plus is the choreography and movement from Javier De Frutos, which creates a visual language which often transcends the moments of lumpen verse.

While there’s much that is exciting and innovative in this interpretation and Norris’s direction is commendable, the struggle over the soul of Everyman is ultimately, and perplexingly, a rather soulless affair.

Runs until August 30, box office: nationaltheatre.org.uk

REVIEW BY YVONNE LYSANDROU