The force of George Bernard Shaw's later drama hits you like a theatrical sand-blasting machine - it's gritty, it can sometimes set your teeth on edge, but you feel thoroughly cleansed and rejuvenated by the experience.
And how we are due a dose of his purgative assault right now. Major Barbara is an ironic broadside against arms manufacturing, wrong-headed militancy and the political opportunism of war. Extraordinary to think that it was written in the opening years of the last century rather than the current one.
The crux of the play is based on the classic Shavian conundrum of high-minded enterprise founded on ill-gotten gains. Barbara enjoys the financial liberty to become tambourine-basher-in-chief for the Salvation Army because her estranged father, Andrew Undershaft, is an armaments baron. But while Barbara's citadel is a cesspit of squalour and social impoverishment, Undershaft's employees live in an affluent community of parks, libraries and improving facilities.
Greg Hersov's energetic production keeps the artillery of Shaw's debate rocketing back and forth, and features a battle of wills between Emma Cunniffe's feisty Barbara and David Horovitch's hangdog Undershaft. On their first meeting, Cunniffechallenges Horowitz to state his religion. "My religion?" he declares blithely: "I'm a millionaire."
Conor Murphy's design is lurid, hot and red, and much of the acting is equally incendiary: Michael Colgan brings a raffish charm to Barbara's Greek-spouting, agnostic fiancé; Francis Magee is truly frightening as a violent East End destitute; and Rufus Jones's puppyish endorsement of the Undershaft empire is fitting summation for the whole production: "It's all horribly, immorally, unanswerably perfect."
· Until June 19. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
