The screenwriter William Goldman suggested that Hollywood meetings ought to have an awards ceremony of their own, with categories based on "best meeting of the year", "best supporting meeting", "best meeting based on material from another meeting", and so forth.
David Mamet's Speed the Plow collects the honours for best stage adaptation of a meeting. Drawn from the author's many hours of creative discussion with tinseltown number-crunchers, it's a hilarious dissemination of art being sacrificed to commerce in a market where "it's our business to make what everyone else was making last year".
Gould is a studio executive freshly promoted to a position of commissioning power. On his desk is a formulaic prison-breakout drama with a big star attached, and an obscure mystical novel predicting the end of the world through divine radiation. It ought to be, in Hollywood terms, a no-brainer - had he not ceded responsibility for reading the novel to a pretty and startlingly persuasive temporary secretary.
To describe the drama as a battle for a film executive's soul seems oxymoronic, as it assumes that film executives have souls to begin with. But it's a magnificently poised tug-of-allegiance powered by the momentum of some of Mamet's best lines: "The movie business is like a new love affair - it's full of surprises and you keep getting fucked."
Chris Honer's production is handsomely presented against stylish sets by Dawn Allsopp. There's great work from Jamie Lee as a perpetually wired co-producer with an eye on the percentage, and Rachael Hayden as the willowy secretary who believes she has stumbled across the key to life.
As Gould, Martin Ledwith vacillates between both camps with increasing raggedness, creating a convincing impression of a man empowered to introduce some good into the world while all his commercial instincts advise against it. And the prize for best revival of a staged meeting goes to the Library Theatre.
· Until June 17. Box office: 0161-236 7110
