Rather like a box of chocolates, this production of J M Barrie’s Quality Street is stuffed with rattling good surprises making it one of the most enjoyable Northern Broadsides productions I have ever seen.

At first glance it’s a standard period rom-com; with the women in pastel crinolines and the men in Napoleonic War red army uniforms. But this play does not do what it says on the tin.

It opens with a group of present-day, white-coated Mackintosh sweet factory workers discussing what we’re about to see. “I’ve never been to the theatre before”. “What if she gets pregnant?” They ‘um’ and ‘er’ like real people, and that’s because they are real people. In a hugely inventive device, director Laurie Sansom invited some Halifax factory workers to attend rehearsals and pass comment; and their comments (largely on the subject of romance) were recorded and scripted and put into the play. “Will he come back to her?”  “This factory used to be a knocking shop!” It’s the Yorkshire equivalent of a Greek Chorus. It works beautifully, it’s engagingly funny and it allows references to Love Island and George Clooney to be squeezed into a play penned in 1902.    

It takes us 10 minutes to get to the original script which transpires to be a crazy, convoluted comedy which earns much more laughter than Mr Barrie might have possibly imagined.

Vivacious, ringleted Phoebe Throssel has met 'a certain individual'. But when he comes to call it is not to propose, but to say goodbye; for Captain Brown has enlisted to fight the French. Ten years later he returns to find dowdy Phoebe ground down by a decade of school teaching. Does he still love her?

The hesitant ‘will they, won’t they’ chemistry between actors Paula Lane and Aron Julius is a total delight, especially as Lane also pretends to be Phoebe’s sensational, party-girl cousin Libby; a cue for more comedy confusion.

It will be another two years before J M Barrie writes Peter Pan but there are clear soundings of the famous play to come. School teacher Phoebe is tired of responsibility. 'Where is my youth?' she cries. Which is why she adopts the persona of an imaginary girl who refuses to grow up.          

With precise plotting, Captain Brown meets them both. But which woman will he woo? The faithfully Phoebe or the libertine Libby? Will it be 'love or pity?'. There is a very cleverly written and most moving confession scene; but even then, no-one is any wiser.

The two central performances are superb; matched by an equally excellent all-round cast playing the 19th and 21st century ensembles. But let me pick two.

Louisa-May Parker very nearly steals the show as sister Susan, who is rather more resigned to being ‘grown up’. Her comedy timing is immaculate, as she circumnavigates the scrapes Phoebe has got her into. I hope she will excuse me likening her to the legendary late Lip Service Theatre comic actress Maggie Fox who had the wonderful knack of having audiences in hysterics without apparently meaning to. Louisa-May adds extra refined sophistication to her own huge comic potential, and when chaos ensues all around her, no one does ‘bewilderment’ better.

I must also make special mention of Gilly Tompkins who takes the traditional ‘comedy maid’ role to new heights. She is beautifully defiant as Patty the domestic, who has the gall to quietly hum the Marseillaise in the presence of patriots. And she strolls out in factory fatigues at the end of the interval to dish toffees to the audience and pass comment on her own love life. 'I’ve been round the block a few times'.

It's a factory-workers aside that sums up how romance has evolved in the past 200 years in a way, I fancy, Mr Barrie would enjoy. And I absolutely guarantee you will enjoy the way this bright gem of British theatre has been polished anew. Every chocolate in the tin is a real treat.

Five stars

Reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee at New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme. Quality Street continues to show at the venue until Saturday 25 March.