No one knows where the story of Beauty and the Beast came from. The first English adaptation of the tale appeared in a 1757 edition of the Young Misses Magazine, which sounds like a finishing-school almanac. Folklorists categorise the archetype as 425C, which is redolent of cloakroom tickets. Charles Way's engrossing new version contains elements of both: it tweaks the folklore to give it a Regency twist.
His heroine could be Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse, running off to marry a monster. Way gives the name Cassandra to Beauty's possessive sister; she shares it with the sibling of whom Austen was rather too fond, according to some scholars. Even Cassandra's suitor is called Knightley. Perhaps this is reading too much into Way's intentions, but he does give Roger Haines's production a handsome context, and succeeds in keeping the children enchanted and their parents awake.
Nor does the staging fight shy of the story's sinister undertones. This is, after all, a weird wish-fulfilment fantasy coupling virginity and bestiality, centred around the fragrant, erotic potential of a rose. In his hirsute incarnation, Douglas Rankine's Beast is alarmingly seductive, radiating a Liam Gallagher-esque charisma.
That this is to be a scary ride is established from the beginning, when Beauty's bedroom is invaded by sinister servants with stockings on their heads. Throughout the evening these shadow-players manipulate the action, whipping the stage into a vortex of whirling furniture and fluid scenic transformations. Choreographer Liam Steel, on loan from DV8 Physical Theatre, provides this stunning movement direction, adding to the general turbulence with a sense that nothing is stable for a moment. The ingenious simplicity of Kate Burnett's set completes the illusion, along with Nick Richings's impressionistically dappled lighting and Richard Taylor's pulse-quickening music.
Jessica Radcliffe is touching as the heroine who is initially repulsed by spiders, but ultimately not by the hot breath of a shaggy, anthropomorphic horror with a heart of gold. A Beauty considerably more than skin-deep.
· Until January 19. Box office: 0161-236 7110.
