THIS year marks the 20th anniversary of John Godber's tenure as artistic director of Hull Truck - Trainspotting director Danny Boyle was his rival for the post - and the 20th anniversary of Up'n'Under, his first play for the company.

Originally written by this son of a miner partly to impress his mates, Up'n'Under and its tale of blood, sweat and beers in the heartland of amateur rugby league sevens has undergone the surgeon's knife for a 20th birthday nip and tuck.

"I've gone back to the original script and re-written some of it just because I think I'm a better writer of dialogue now," Godber says. "It's rather like revisiting an old friend but actually bringing something new to the party."

He brings both old and new: indeed some of the old lines have been switched to different characters, as if they were rugby players interchanging passes. More obvious signs of the re-write are references to Eminem and Jason Robinson (with a dig at rugby union to boot).

Back on the team sheet are Hull Truck warhorses Martin Barrass and Iain Rogerson (latterly Harry Flagg in Coronation Street), who return to the familiar playing fields of Up'n'Under with relish. Their innate comic timing, honed in their days together in a Laurel and Hardy show, serves them well as Rogerson's ex-rugby league pro turned decorator Arthur Hoyle talks himself into an impossible challenge: training the worst sevens side in Yorkshire to take on the Cobblers Arms, the mean, moody and magnificent pub champions from Castleford, run by dodgy businessman Reg Walsh (Barrass adorned in bling).

The new recruits are Kate Baines, former Hollyoaks blonde - aren't they all blonde in Hollyoaks? - but more importantly, grounded in the comedic traditions of Wakefield's Bretton Hall Drama School, and York's beefcake Gladiator James "Hunter" Crossley. Baines cuts the mustard as no-nonsense gym instructor Hazel Scott, who must knock the hapless Wheatsheaf team into shape, and handles Godber's spoof Henry V soliloquies with equal lan.

Godber appears to have fine-tuned the role of the formerly skinny, callow Tony Burtoft specifically to the physical specifications of Crossley, giving him the new obsessive hobby of wanting to pursue a career in body-building. Crossley was always a cut above his fellow Gladiators in pantomime, and his acting has come on in leaps and bounds, resulting in his best performance yet.

Hull Truck regular Rob Angell, as hang-dog butcher Frank, and James Weaver's prickly history teacher Phil Hopley contribute hugely to the team too, and if the characters remain caricatures, Up'n'Under is still the cream of Godber's physical comedies with its training routines and coup-de-grace finale where the cast plays both teams in a bruising match with all the epic drama of Rocky.

Box office: 01482 323638.

Updated: 09:44 Friday, July 23, 2004