There could hardly be a better way for the Royal Exchange to celebrate its 30th birthday than with this stage version of Elizabeth Gaskell's marvellously vivid 1848 novel about the lives of ordinary working Manchester people. The building that houses this unique theatre-in-the-round was built on the profits of the labour of those who worked in the 19th-century mills and who lived and died turning Manchester into the textile capital of the world. It's a point neatly underlined in Rona Munro's steely adaptation and Sarah Frankcom's engrossing production: both are haunted by the ghosts of thousands of poor who expired for the want of enough to eat.
The dead son of John Barton - the idealistic union leader whose dreams of a better world are shattered by the power of the mill owners and the desperation of the workers - stalks the stage, and Liz Ashcroft's effective design ensures that the living sip tea while perched on coffins, and every step they take is over the graves of the dead.
Beginning in a flurry of icy, cotton-like snow, but always full of heat and passion, Munro's filleted version retains both Gaskell's beady eye for detail and her compassion for all humanity, as it tells the story of Mary Barton, whose experience of grinding poverty - and the example of her aunt who counsels that "a decent life may kill us all" - prompts her to dream of becoming a lady. A beautiful scene towards the end, in which two men - worker and owner - sit together in a graveyard united by the shared grief of a lost son, and yet still worlds apart, is typical of a production in which the urge towards melodrama is always offset by a plain grace.
At almost three hours, the evening could be pacier, but Frankcom is in tune with a space which can trip up even the most experienced director, and she elicits some terrific playing from an ensemble that pulls together as if they've been working with each other for years.
Some recent work on the Exchange's main stage has been pedestrian, but this evening is a reminder that when a production makes a genuine connection with its audience, this theatre can transform the most disparate bunch of theatre-goers into a community.
· Until October 14. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
