Set in a bleak Scottish farming community, David Harrower's debut play is a tale of emotional entanglement between a fair maid, a ploughman and a miller. It sounds like the premise for a fey, romantic lieder cycle, but develops into a dark metaphysical hymn in praise of flour.
I can think of plays that explore the theatrical possibilities of pastry - Arnold Wesker's Four Seasons is, if nothing else, a piece about the preparation of apple strudel - but few dramas get their hands quite as dusty as Harrower's does here.
Throughout the course of a terse 90 minutes, flour gets thrown, spilled and, at one point, kneaded into the skin as a symbol of erotic abandonment. Maybe the only reason that the work hasn't been revived in this country since its premiere in 1995 is that there's so much sweeping up to do afterwards.
To understand the deep reserves of menace that Harrower taps into, you have to appreciate something of the historical pariah status of millers. Ever since Chaucer, millers have been portrayed as untrustworthy layabouts making free with other people's corn. Harrower intensifies this by making his miller a literate man of the enlightenment, which increases the villagers' suspicion no end.
The acting in Jo Combes's cleverly nuanced production is thrillingly rugged. Stuart Bowman makes a primal, savage ploughman; Derek Riddell an enigmatic, cerebral miller; while Rae Hendrie flits attractively between the two. It's gritty, bitter, has some hauntingly beautiful passages; and you'll never look at a packet of Allinson wholemeal the same way again.
· Until February 21. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
