YOU will not see a better theatre show in York this year, and you won't have seen a better theatre show in York since The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time.

For those who want their National Theatre to be for everyone, and not only for London, then the Grand Opera House is doing a fine job of bringing the NT north, thanks to the pulling power of the GOH's owners, the Ambassador Theatre Group.

It is time to cast aside the perception that serious theatre is the preserve of the Theatre Royal; the Opera House is the home to musicals. Both theatres are spreading their wings, Rent enjoying a successful run at Theatre Royal; the National Theatre making its mark in Cumberland Street.

Your reviewer cannot urge you enough to see Sally Cookson's remarkable interpretation of Charlotte Bronte's no less remarkable novel. Yes, some of the ticket prices are on a Premier League scale, but this is Premier League theatre. What's more, Jane Eyre is a Yorkshire story, back on home turf after Cookson's premiere at the Bristol Old Vic and subsequent transfer to the South Bank.

Rather than being adapted for the stage with a plodding narrator, this is a devised production of vivid, vital imagination. Michael Vale's set is rough hewn, gutted to the minimum, with wooden flooring and walkways, a proliferation of ladders, a sofa, and yet it evokes everything of Bronte's harsh world.

Cookson's cast is multi role-playing, aside from Nadia Clifford's Jane Eyre, who never once leaves the stage in three hours (interval aside), changing costumes in full view with the assistance of fellow cast members. The story hurtles along so fast, the ensemble company runs on the spot between scenes to the accompaniment of thunderous drums, and they even take a mock piddle at one point in the rush to crack on: one of the comic elements to counter the grimness up north.

Energy, energy, energy! And that applies not only to Clifford's feisty, fiery Jane Eyre, whose accent may curve towards her native North West, but that in no way lessens her performance. The cast as a whole is magnificent, be it Tim Delap's troubled Rochester, Evelyn Miller's triptych of Bessie, Blanche Ingram and St John; Paul Mundell's austere Mr Brocklehurst and tail-wagging Pilot the dog; Lynda Rooke's chalk and cheese Mrs Reed and Mrs Fairfax or surely-too-good-to-be-an understudy Francesca Tomlinson's five-hand of roles.

There is so much more that makes Cookson's production so startling,movingly brilliant: the sound design of Dominic Bilkey, the inexhaustible movement direction of Dan Canham; the beautiful, haunting compositions of Benji Bower for the on-stage band of David Ridley, Alex Heane and Matthew Churcher, who join in ensemble scenes too and never take their gaze off the action.

Last but very definitely not least is Melanie Marshall, the diva voice of Bertha Mason, a one-woman Greek chorus whose versions of Mad About The Boy and Gnarls Barkley's Crazy will linger like Jane Eyre in the memory.

Jane Eyre, National Theatre/Bristol Old Vic, at Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york. Prices range from £14.40 to £35.90.