Well, if you're looking for a Hedda Gabler to make the blood run cold you've found her in Rosamund Pike's chilling performance of Ibsen's most famous creation.

Miss Pike, who honed her skills as the Bond villainess Miranda Frost in Die Another Day, puts Hedda right up there with the Lady Macbeths of this world as a woman without, apparently, a single redeeming quality.

Miss Pike herself is tall, beautiful and acts icily cool as she goes about her treacherous work. In stunning gowns she wafts across the stage looking more striking than the most super of super models.

OK, so we know that in Ibsen's play we are being shown how women had nothing better to do than be kind to elderly in-laws and nurse the vanity of amiable but ultimately boring husbands, but what we see here is a woman lashing out in a horribly cool and calculating way at anything – or more particularly any one – that crosses her path.

When Hedda finally puts a bullet through her own head – as opposed to making other people put one through their own – we feel not so much sorrow at what a beautiful, highly intelligent woman might have accomplished but relief that she will cause no more devastation.

It is, of course, a fantastic performance that will put this home grown Theatre Royal Bath production at the top of the must-see list when, after a short tour, it goes into London's West End.

But it is not Miss Pike's performance alone that will put this production into the history books but the whole ensemble of actors including Anna Carteret, Robert Glenister, Colin Tierney and Tim McInnerny. They together form a wonderful setting in which Hedda Gabler launches her attacks on first one and then another.

This really is thrilling stuff. The chill night air at the end of the evening seemed warm in comparison to what was going on up there on stage.

This will be one of the most talked about plays of the year and, like so many these days we see it here in Bath before they go into the West End.

For tickets call 01225448844.

Christopher Hansford