When Aristotle spoke of the dramatic unities of time and place, it's unlikely that he was thinking of setting a play on the top deck of a bus; especially as confining the action to the public transport system sounds like a recipe for drama that goes nowhere very fast. Yet Mark Kirkby, a first-time writer of notable ingenuity, turns this strange confinement to his advantage: conceiving an ordinary Leeds gyratory route as a mobile battleground for a divided city.
On one side of the aisle are the incomers: media graduates Anna and Ben, conducting a guerrilla promotional campaign for their new magazine. Sitting opposite are the locals: Vickers and Sam, cooking up wild conspiracies to rid the town of poncy students.
Were there any measure of reality to this, you would expect a red-faced driver to come storming up the stairs and tell the lot of them to hoppit. But Kirkby's jittery, non-linear technique is less an exercise in conventional storytelling than a surreal metaphor that mixes candid documentary with arresting lyrical observations: "The sparkle on the pavement that promises diamonds but is only ever safety glass."
It's far from perfect - at barely over an hour it's a pretty brisk ride, and the characters are so overtly symmetric that you wish more passengers would get on. Yet Alan Lane's production moves with impressive pace, featuring fine performances from Louise Howells and Simon Harrison as the grads and Nick Bagnall and Belinda Everett as the chavs.
When it's over, you will find the bus station conveniently located on the Playhouse's doorstep: though you may be more inclined to call a cab.
· Until May 27. Box office: 0113-213 7700
