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Macbeth 8.30pm, BBC1

THE idea of relocating Shakespeare's most bloody tragedy in the kitchen of a modern restaurant is inspired.

It's a setting which reflects all the bloodletting and steamy emotions of the drama.

James McAvoy (from Shameless) plays Joe Macbeth, a name taken from the 1955 film of that title.

In that version the play was cleverly reworked as a gangster drama - in this one Joe is a talented chef who doesn't get the credit he deserves because the restaurant's owner, Duncan, takes all the applause and even has his own TV series.

Driven by his sexy and ambitious wife Ella (a tremendous performance by Keeley Hawes, of Spooks fame), the solution is obvious: Joe must slaughter Duncan and take over the restaurant. Another stroke of inspiration is to turn the play's witches into a trio of bin-men, carrying away a hotchpotch of offal and gore from the back of the restaurant. They are grimy and otherworldly, but also strangely prophetic.

The script by Peter Moffat (who also wrote Cambridge Spies and Hawking) is strong, and repeatedly carries clear echoes of Shakespeare's original - as well as a nice joke about the play itself, when one of the chefs mentions Gordon Ramsay and is told never to raise his name in the kitchen. "It's bad luck to say it out loud - just call him the Scottish chef."

As the plot progresses, there is a real sense of an enclosed universe and also of a place, and a man, unravelling.

But for all its good points - and fine performances - this version of the Scottish play isn't totally successful. A long time is spent building up Macbeth's world at the beginning, but despite this, we still don't warm to him. And then his downfall comes with unbelievable speed, as if the programme-makers suddenly thought: "Oh my God, we've only got a few minutes left, let's wrap it up quickly."

The result is a drama that feels rather more like a starter than a main course.