FORMER teacher John Godber wrote his stinging classroom comedy deep into the Thatcher years, frustrated at the rotten state of comprehensive schools.

He is not averse to updating his plays, but to go back to the drawing board with Teechers would be wrong. It is a play of its time, 1987, and yet like other old-school period pieces, Tom Brown's Schooldays or The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, its theme is undiminished.

Godber, one-time head of drama at Minsthorpe High School in South Yorkshire, writes a damning indictment of the failings of an under-funded education system, condemning the betrayal of children through cuts and lack of opportunity. Education provision, with its labyrinthine structure of exams and assessments, has moved on but the core issues of funding, favoured schools and bored teenagers have not.

Nor have the dynamics of the classroom, the school yard and the staff room, and Godber's uncanny observations are the fuel in the fast-travelling comic engine here.

A cast of four play more than 1,500 - school head, teachers, pupils, school bully, janitor - between them at Whitewall Comprehensive School, a struggling school given priority status.

In this comic-strip comedy in the manner of Godber's Bouncers, three pupils, Salty (Pete Dunwell), Hobby (Caroline Lord) and Gail (Holly Smith), are your guides through the corridors, joined by a further narrator, new probationary drama teacher Geoff Nixon (Andrew Cryer).

He enters the classroom in a blinding heavenly light, to the accompaniment of whistling winds and rolling tumbleweed that usually accompanies Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western. This is but one of many comic innovations from new artistic director Hannah Chissick in her first repertory show.

Harrogate Theatre last presented Teechers in November 1996 when debutante director Jane Montgomery's inexperienced production merited a C grade. By comparison, Chissick attains an A grade, not least for the authentic evocation of the Eighties, foyer soundtrack and all.

From casting to resourceful use of Lisa Vandy's chalk-board set, from fresh ideas for comic business to a well-judged balance of comedy, pathos and social comment, this is a Teechers where you can taste the chalk dust.

The beefy Dunwell is an inspired signing from Chissick's days at the Derby Playhouse; Cryer, Lord and Smith are impressive too; and an uncredited fifth cast member, playing the ever-running Simon Patterson, is employed cleverly to effect change scenes. No wonder John Godber, watching with his daughter, so enjoyed his play coming alive again.

Box office: 01423 502116

Updated: 12:20 Wednesday, October 22, 2003