YOU know The Proclaimers' surging songs, you may well have seen the 2013 film, and now the sun shines even more brightly on Sunshine On Leith in this new West Yorkshire Playhouse production of Stephen Greenhorn's musical.

Greenhorn's original show predates the feelgood movie, having been commissioned and directed by Playhouse artistic director James Brining when he held the same post at the Dundee Rep. It duly won the UK Theatre Best Musical Award in 2007, and you can see why in Brining's new sunrise, a fantastic last hurrah in the Quarry Theatre before the Playhouse redevelopment begins.

It is worth reading Brining's programme notes that outline why a very Scottish story, in very Scottish voices, is nevertheless universal in its appeal, just like the North East's Billy Elliot danced its way into hearts nationwide and even internationally.

Brining points out how, beyond the big hits (the climactic numbers Letter To America and I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), Craig and Charlie Reid wrote not only of falling in and out of love, but also of infidelity, faith, the death of a parent, politics, having children, religion. How true. They did so – and they still do – with scabrous wit, kitchen-sink drama, passion, intensity, romance and reality. Let alone their wonderful ear for melody.

In other words, these were songs that could transfer to the stage, wrapped in a story that touched on all those everyday matters of life (and death). Step forward Stephen Greenhorn, and Sunshine On Leith, like the Madness show Our House, would breathe fresh, life-affirming life into a back catalogue.

What Greenhorn has done is make the dialogue shine as much as the songs, brilliantly spinning the story from the emotions that are always so powerful in a Proclaimers number.

Here he builds his story around servicemen Davy (Steven Miller) and Ally (Paul-James Corrigan) returning from war overseas, seeking to readjust to Edinburgh, or rather Leith, the home of these Hibs supporters.

Ally seeks to rekindle the flame with Liz (Neshla Caplan); charmer Davy and Northerner nurse Yvonne (Jocasta Almgill) spark up a new fire. Not all runs smoothly, especially for Davy's parents Jean (Hilary MacLean) and Rab (Phil McKee), without giving too much of the plot away, but all those ups and downs of life mentioned above come into play.

Brining's notes make a further point, commenting on how Sunshine On Leith speaks even more powerfully 11 years on, with its "themes of community, belonging and togetherness, as a family, a city and indeed a nation" having greater pertinence post independence and Brexit referenda. How true again.

Theatre at its best, at close quarters even on a big stage, builds that feeling of community, that togetherness rooted in a shared experience, and this actor-musician production most assuredly does that; the band on stage, ensemble players making a point of connecting with the audience, the tremendous principal performers as powerful in dialogue as they are in song.

And what songs they are, performed so vibrantly, so vigorously, so righteously. You would walk 500 miles just to see this show; it's that good.  

Sunshine On Leith, The Musical, runs at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until May 19, then on tour. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at wyp.org.uk