The sound of sirens which opens An Inspector Calls gives the audience a clue that JB Priestley's repertory favourite is going to be all too topical.

People fearing conflict with Iraq are presented with a play in which the Inspector is transported back in time from 1945 to 1912 to warn the wealthy and self-satisfied Birling family about the impending threat of two world wars.

Director Stephen Daldry has taken the play out of the Birlings' dining room, where it is usually set and placed much of it squarely on the mean, damp cobbles of a Northern industrial town where penury contrasts starkly with the prosperity inside.

In doing so, Daldry has created a production which has become laden with honours but which never seems to be in any way bowed down by them.

He is helped by an outstanding cast which does justice to Priestley's well-crafted words.

Nicholas Day is thought-provoking as the enigmatic and knowing Inspector who confronts the Birlings and, with forensic skills cuts through their smugness to reveal how selfish they have all have been.

He is equalled by David Roper, a columnist for The Argus, who is totally convincing as the bluff and over-confident Arthur Birling, a man who believes the little world he commands will last forever. Sandra Duncan is suitably commanding as his imperious wife.

The younger generation, whom Priestley rightly regards as more able to adapt to change than their elders, are represented first by Katherine Tozer as the Birling's doubting daughter Sheila.

Her worries are shared sporadically by Dominic Taylor as her fiance who flits between being priggish and uncomfortable with what the Inspector is remorselessly revealing.

Jamie de Courcey is amusingly gauche as the inebriated and naive younger brother, while Diane Payne Myers makes the most of her role as Edna the maid, emerging briefly from the shadows in the street.

Designer Ian MacNeil has cleverly created a set which sags like the Birling family's fortunes but then revives as they believe all is not lost - by the end, like them, it is never quite the same again.

Priestley, who was scarred by his experiences in battle, wrote this play during the dark days of the Second World War with an unquenchable optimism that inevitable change would be for the good of the community as a whole.

He manages to put across a powerful message without becoming tiresomely didactic in the manner of George Bernard Shaw or Arnold Wesker.

Priestley would have been proud of the way in which Daldry, Oscar nominated for his new film The Hours, makes the most of his fine sense of drama while recognising he was an experimental dramatist rather than a purveyor of conventional plays and cosy fireside chats.

The play runs straight through without an interval for 105 minutes and the inspector never palls.

For tickets and information, call 01273 328488.