They're concerned about 24-hour drinking in Nottingham. A local authority task force estimated that there are more than 16,000 binge drinkers in the city, while the Daily Mail branded it a place that "epitomises a drinking culture spinning rapidly out of control".
Yet Alan Sillitoe's novel about "the best and bingeiest glad-time of the week" is a reminder that the city's youth were still able to get well out of hand when the pubs shut at 11. Amanda Whittington's stage adaptation, presented by Midlands-based New Perspectives, makes the almost 50-year-old classic seem less nostalgic than prophetic.
Arthur Seaton is a young, single working-class man who is out of control. With no responsibility to anyone except himself, he cares for nothing except the latest street fashions, fighting, screwing and drinking until he vomits. He is, in other words, the very definition of chav. If you need further proof of his modernity, he is the original owner of the line "Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not", which Arctic Monkeys borrowed for the title of their album.
Previous Arthurs have included Albert Finney and Ian McKellen, but if Peter McCamley is awed by this heritage, he doesn't show it. The challenge of playing Arthur is to behave appallingly yet crave the audience's indulgence, and McCamley has plentiful reserves of chipper charm, not unaided by a passing resemblance to Jamie Oliver.
The rest of Daniel Buckroyd's six-strong cast form an impressive ensemble. There's truly harrowing work from Nicky Rafferty as she undergoes an agonising, botched abortion. It would be easy to imagine that Saturday Night and Sunday Morning might have lost some of its original, visceral impact: but whatever you think it is, that's what it's not.
· Until February 18. Box office: 0115-846 7777. Then touring
