It really is astonishing how much of George Bernard Shaw's century-old play remains pertinent. Take out the Victorian class structure and there's little in his argument about poverty, prostitution and the profit motive that would be out of place in a Guardian opinion piece today.
What elevates the play above the level of a newspaper editorial, of course, is the skill with which Shaw presents both argument and counter-argument. Having made a convincing case that it was poverty, not immorality, that led the young Kitty Warren into her illicit profession, he turns the tables to suggest she has become a willing partner in the capitalist machine. His refusal to moralise about the sex trade, only about the system that supports it, provides the play with its dramatic tension and its surprising modernity.
Even so, lengthy political discourse can become leaden on stage, and it's to the great credit of director Tony Cownie that Shaw's arguments sparkle like the repartee of the most frivolous of comedies. Thanks to a near-perfect cast, the characters are far more human, not mere ciphers for the playwright's debate.
In the title role, Paola Dionisotti never loses the music-hall abrasiveness from under the surface of her gaudy but genteel appearance. Wearing frocks that range from acid green to sweet-wrapper purple, she knows she is only playing the lady ("I always was a bit of a vulgarian"). Things grow a lot more serious for her daughter Vivie, but Emma Stansfield plays her with a similar lightness of touch in a performance of intelligence, empathy and wit.
· Until March 10. Box office: 0131 248 4848. Then touring.
