WHY on God's own soil has this humorous, affecting play taken so long to find its way home to Yorkshire from Chelsea?

Maybe the need for a cast of seven has stopped York Theatre Royal from mounting a Studio production since Peter Gill's premiere in 2002 at the Royal Court. Instead, the honour of breaking the Yorkshire duck goes to York Settlement Players, a company with a nose for unearthing pearls.

The York Realist's title is derived from the anonymous 15th century writer of eight plays in the York Mystery Plays, and the Plays form the backdrop to a domestic drama in a tied farm cottage outside York in 1963, the year when Gill was assistant director on that summer's production in the Museum Gardens.

"Field" recordings from Settlement's pageant wagon play in July set the scene for the rumbling story of George (outstanding debutant Adam Bambrough), a towering and taciturn farm labourer, as he takes tentative steps with London-smart assistant director John (Paul Toy) in the fields of Mystery Plays acting and a love that dare not speak its name.

As blunt as mud, George has yet to cut the apron strings from his ailing mother (Doreen Gurrey), who forever lays on meals and tenderness. "Nowt wrong with that, mother," he says, pushing away his freshly consumed plate in what passes for a Yorkshire compliment.

Such a line may remind you of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch but, in Yorkshire hands, The York Realist has poignancy, resonance and local knowledge on home soil. Not only does Jill Maris's traverse set design make you feel you could join skiving young Jack (Andy Pilliner) in nibbling on a biscuit in the living room, but you are immersed in the stiff sixties world of the outdoor khazi, the five-hour train journeys to London and the central role of the Methodist Chapel in the lives of Mother and the doting Doreen (Rachel Johnson).

George's no-nonsense sister Barbara (Vicki Hill) and factory worker husband Arthur (Keir Brown) point to a new world beyond labour-intensive farming but the land is a tie that binds, even strangles, in Paul Osborne's marvellously evocative kitchen-sink drama.

  • The York Realist, York Settlement Players, Friargate Theatre, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 613000