Successful Salford boot-seller Henry Horatio Hobson is a man who believes in "the majesty of trade", "the sanity of the middle classes" and "the diligence of the working class". In his solid, comfortable, Victorian world, every man and woman knows their place, and that means that man is master in his own household.
Hobson thinks he rules the roost, but his sensible eldest daughter, Maggie, knows better. Particularly when Hobson announces that his daughters will not marry - Maggie, because she is too useful and at 30 also too old; flighty young Vicky and Alice because their father is not prepared to cough up a marriage portion. Maggie saves her silly sisters from spinsterhood, but not before she has bagged herself Willie Mossop, the company's lowly but talented boot-maker.
Next month at the Young Vic, Harold Brighouse's 1915 comedy will be updated and relocated to Salford's contemporary Asian community. This may or may not work, but it is a more creative approach to the play than what is on offer at the Royal Exchange. Braham Murray's production is handsome and often comically spry, but there is no getting away from the fact that Brighouse's play is traditional not only in form but also in attitudes. This is not a satire of Victorian values but a celebration of them, albeit an enjoyable one. Maggie is no feminist role model; the Maggie she most closely resembles is Maggie Thatcher.
On the surface, Maggie is a revolutionary who challenges Victorian certainties. But underneath she is a traditionalist, cut from exactly the same cloth as her father. She marries for money, or at least the prospect of it, and drags her husband into the middle classes by his bootstraps.
This is as palatable as a dose of castor oil, but Murray's production ensures that it all slips down very easily. Joanna Riding is a very good saleswoman for Maggie, playing her as a younger version of all those lovable dragons who inhabit sitcom fantasy-land. She has an excellent foil in the superb comic talents of John Thomson, whose Willie Mossop grows from fleshy timidity to man of substance.
· Until June 28. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
