Road
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
★★★★★

A SIGN slowly spins from the ceiling: Road. The first word has snapped off, leaving a fragment that could belong to any broken street in any broken town. It’s a quietly potent image, and one that this 40th‑anniversary revival of Jim Cartwright’s debut uses as an open invitation for the audience to step inside and connect with its inhabitants.

Part promenade, part in‑the‑round, Leslie Travers’s immersive set draws the audience past fly‑tipped tyres and couples getting ready for a night out. Actors climb ladders and appear on upper levels, directly addressing people in the front row. In blurring the boundary between cast and crowd, director Selina Cartmell creates a febrile, unpredictable atmosphere in which it feels as though anything might happen.

Rejecting a conventional narrative, the play unfolds in a series of snapshots: fleeting glimpses into the lives of people living on a single road in a nameless Lancashire town. Set in 1986, it’s a community hollowed out by high unemployment and lack of hope. With nothing better to do, the characters drink, reminisce about better times, and indulge in sordid sex.

The language is coarse but crackles with playfulness. Insults come easier than affection, but when they let down their guard, the characters crave the beauty of Otis Redding’s Try A Little Tenderness. It’s these moments of vulnerability that flip the play from belly laughs to deep pathos in the blink of an eye.

Hovering on the margins is narrator and self‑styled tour guide Scullery, played by a dishevelled Johnny Vegas. Pugnacious and world‑weary, he chooses not to see the fragility around him: Molly (Lesley Joseph), a pensioner who’s unable to remember her husband’s face; Jerry (a pre‑recorded Tom Courtenay), trapped in the past; and Helen (Shobna Gulati), whose desperate attempt to seduce an incapacitated soldier is as heartbreaking as it is uncomfortably hilarious.

The play doesn’t offer a neat resolution, because there isn’t one in real life. Many of the northern towns that were ravaged by Thatcher’s policies have still never recovered, with unemployment entrenched and opportunities scarce for younger generations. It’s a reality that Road conveys with brutal honesty. For all its raucous comedy, it’s the deep pathos that remains.

Running until March 14 2026. Box office: 0161 833 9833, royalexchange.co.uk  

Note that although the run is sold out, banquette seat day tickets will be available from 12pm each day. They can be bought in person from the Royal Exchange Theatre’s box office or by phone throughout the run.