Only lawyers should not go to this week's offering at the Theatre Royal.

If they do, they'll get a stiff tongue-lashing from Henry Hobson, the central character in Harold Brighouse's sparkling comedy.

Everyone else should go along because this is surely one very good evening's entertainment.

Hobson's Choice, written during the First World War and set in 1880s Manchester, is beautifully crafted, very funny and a delight to watch. Yet it is no period piece - its sentiments are bang up to date.

Harold Hobson is a middle-class cobbler selling to the prosperous merchants and professionals of Salford and beginning to break into the carriage trade.

He has firm views on everything, especially not wasting money on paying wages when he can use the talents of his three daughters, especially the eldest, Maggie, to run his shop.

However, since the death of his wife, his two youngest daughters have become "uppity", wear modern dresses and want to get married.

But when settlements may have to be paid out, marriage is forbidden.

Thus it is left to Maggie to help arrange matters while she has her own plans - to marry Willie Mossop, her father's apprentice who is a master bootmaker.

This is a family at war and it is a splendid war carried out by a talented cast that brings Brighouse's play wonderfully alive.

Tony Britton makes a marvellous, tyrannical old man, full of bluff and bluster as he makes his fixed opinions clear.

Eldest daughter Maggie is a chip off the block but in a very different way. She wants what she wants and she is going to get it. Katherine Rogers, a former RSC actor, plays it beautifully.

And in Willie Mossop, Michael Begley gives a dazzling display of acting. Stuttering and hesitant, he is most engaging. Shocked by Maggie's forwardness, he quickly grows into the man she wants.

Hobson's Choice is good, solid theatre and, although use of the Lancashire dialect is patchy at times, what comes across is warmth, grit and a wonderful use of the English language.

Long may plays like this be revived.

Call 01273 328488.