It would be an interesting experiment to run Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in real time: commencing at 2am and concluding shortly after dawn. Sarah Frankcom's revival does not go quite that far, though it does have a red-eyed, insomniac quality which leaves you light-headed with exhaustion.
When first performed in 1962, Edward Albee's play was welcomed as a breath of fresh air - although its breath carried heavy traces of alcohol. Pallid biologist Nick and his timid spouse Honey naively accept a night-cap from George and Martha, a vituperative pair of New England academics, who launch into a repertoire of predatory party games known as Get the Guest, Humiliate the Host and, ultimately, Alienate the Audience.
Frankcom takes a calculated risk in running the first two acts together. It is ironic that Martha's first line after the interval is to ask: "Hey, where is everybody?" as the audience has thinned out significantly. But those who opt out miss the finest moment: Martha's soliloquy in which she states that she and her husband shed frozen tears, which they keep in the ice-box to stir into their drinks.
Barbara Marten brilliantly negotiates Martha's terrifying mood swings, while the passive-aggressive tactics of Philip Bretherton's browbeaten George literally leave him the last man standing. There is fine work also from the victims: Michael Begley's flummoxed Nick and Joanne Froggatt's extravagantly bouffanted Honey, a woman whose fragile persona seems held together with hairspray.
It is a gruelling and not always edifying spectacle, but Frankcom and her company create a vivid evocation of a long night's journey into day.
· Until April 14. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
