Following the death of his brother Oedipus, and the subsequent war between his nephews Orrin and Eto, Creon has taken over the city of Thebes.

The nephews have killed each other in a disagreement over who would have control, and Creon has declared that Orrin – who fought on the side of a rival gang – will be branded a traitor and his body left in the street for the dogs. Even mourning him will be forbidden by law, punishable by death.

But Orrin’s sister Antigone defies her uncle Creon’s decree and covers the body of her slain brother. Furious at this treachery, Creon imprisons Antigone and sentences her to be buried alive.

Pilot Theatre’s contemporary version of Sophocle’s classic Greek tragedy Antigone – coming to the Watford Palace Theatre for a five-night run next week – tells the story of a feisty but vulnerable heroine but is also about the eternal truths of loyalty and truth, familial rifts, human nature and human behaviour, and the corrupting qualities of power, and it poses the question: How far are we prepared to go to do what is right?

“In our version, the story is the same as Sophocles’ but the setting has an otherworldly vibe to it,“ explains actor Mark Monero who plays head of the family, criminal boss and nightclub owner Creon. “It’s still a kingdom of sorts, but it’s a kind of parallel world, a made-up world.

“The story is basically about the king making wrong choices and you get to see him getting some sort of comeuppance for the bad choices that he’s made.“

Under the guidance of director Marcus Romer and writer Roy Williams, Mark – who played Steve Elliott in EastEnders for five years between 1996 and 2001 – went about bringing Creon to life by studying the characteristics and qualities of modern-day dictators such as Hitler, Idi Amin and Gadaffi.

“Creon is very tyrannical, quite a colourful character,“ says Mark, 46, “I really enjoy playing him. Roy Williams is a really good writer, once I read his script I got where this guy was coming from, basically a mad dictator.“

Mark, who has also appeared in Casualty, Doctor Who, The Bill, Doctors, Waking the Dead, Gimme Gimme Gimme, and Skins, and on stage in One Man, Two Guvnors in 2013, has appeared in a version of Antigone before, at the Unicorn Theatre for children in London, in which he played one of the guards, and is enjoying discovering a different side to the story, believing the themes of Sophocles’ 441 BC original tragedy to be timeless.

“Most of the themes carry over well into the 21st Century,“ says Mark, “some of these things are happening now – you had the police shooting of the black teenager Michael Brown in Missouri, where his body was just left in the street for hours, and I thought that was quite resonant and scary.

“And the theme of family as well, that obviously runs through and through history – bonds being broken, ties being severed. Sophocles has written a good soap opera!

“In Greek tragedy, the clue’s in the name, something awful has got to happen, someone gets sacrificed or someone gives up their kids,“ continues Mark, who earlier this year played the part of a king, Idomeneus, who had to sacrifice his son. “It’s always sacrifice with Sophocles, I don’t know what’s wrong with that dude!“