ROAD, Jim Cartwright's view of the modern, northern working class, is Coronation Street with attitude.

A group of no hopers escape their humdrum lives by escaping into a world of casual sex and heavy drinking.

One resident is locked in a permenant time warp, re-living his RAF days when he wowed the women in his smart blue uniform.

Cartwright's play is uncompromisingly bleak and he obviously believes that here is a group of people who have been scandalously short changed by society.

But the play, currently playing at the Lowry, isn't totally depressing. There are some humorous scenes including perhaps the most famous one in which a middle aged woman, whose favourite dish is men on toast, tries to seduce a young soldier.

This squaddie is so drunk he's incapable of kissing her let alone copulating with her and she even tries to continue the process after he has vomited in her take away and over her best skirt. While we all howled at this episode, you also wondered if anyone could really be that desperate for casual sex?

Cartwright wrote Road 15 years ago, at the height of Thatcherism and while poverty and deprivation still blights parts of Blair's Britain, the way the subject matter is tackled dates the play somewhat. This is an angry piece of theatre and it still makes for arresting viewing.

Performances from the Pilot Theatre Company are first rate and if you go to the theatre to be challenged as well as entertained, you must take a journey down this Road. But be warned - it is a little rocky in places. Rick Bowen

* Until Saturday. The box office is on 876 2000.