An early moment in Simon Reade's adaptation of Geraldine McCaughrean's novel produces audible gasps. It's when James Cotterill's set design, an astonishing recreation of Noah's ark that reaches up to the sky at one end and plunges dramatically down to the auditorium, is revealed. The set, which captures the loneliness and claustrophobia of life on board the ark, is so ravishingly simple and effective that you can't take your eyes off of it.
Other aspects of Reade's production are equally ambitious, but the results are more mixed. Noisier scenes and the big set pieces, such as a group of annoyingly happy finches, see the production dip into twee and earnest territory. And some members of the ensemble overact as they run about on deck, trying to drum up that end-of-the-world feeling.
It works best during its quieter, poetic moments, in scenes centred around Noah's daughter, Timna (Celia Meiras), a character invented by McCaughrean and very much the heart of the play. In these, the precariousness of life on board the ark is the focus, and ironic links between the animal and human worlds are imaginatively underlined. Simon Allen's stirring music deftly amplifies these themes, and the play is at its strongest as it explores its central oppositions between belief and fanaticism, God and man, and, in this gently feminist retelling, man and woman. "One man's head is a very small place to try and fit the whole of God's intentions," says Noah's wife, much to the audience's amusement.
· Until March 31. Box office: 0117-987 7877
