I’ve not seen the Royal Exchange like this. Ever. I mean nothing about the outside prepares you. But the instant you step inside — first step, first glance — the Exchange has you somewhere else entirely. It’s as if the theatre itself has been woken up, shaken by the shoulders, and told to stop being polite.

For Road, the Exchange doesn’t just host the play, it joins in. The transformation isn’t subtle or tasteful or something you only notice if you squint. It’s right there in your face, big and bold, the sort of statement you’d only really get away up here. With a cast like this and a run that’s sold out, the place feels charged. People are actually queuing to get in, and I genuinely can’t remember the last time I queued for the Rex. Even before you’ve found your seat, you can feel it. The buzz in the room is palpable, like the audience have turned up ready for a proper night out rather than a quiet, well-behaved evening at the theatre.

If you’ve not come across it before, Road is Jim Cartwright’s award-winning portrait of a derelict Northern street, a night in the lives of its residents told in vivid snapshots that swing between comedy, brutality, tenderness and something close to poetry. This revival is directed by Selina Cartmell, and it also marks her directorial debut at the Royal Exchange in her new role as Creative Director. It lands as a statement of intent, and a clear signal of what’s coming next. This 40th anniversary revival kicks off the Royal Exchange’s 50th season and it doesn’t simply dust off a classic. It blows away the cobwebs!

There’s a bit in the blurb that calls the play “shockingly relevant” and, normally, that’s the sort of phrase that sets my scepticism off. But here’s the thing. The relevance doesn’t come from the production hammering you over the head with political parallels. It comes from the people. The rhythms of survival. The laughter that’s half defence mechanism, half lifeline. None of that has dated. If anything, we’ve just found new ways of living with it.

And besides, this isn’t one of those revivals that asks you to admire the writing from a safe distance. Yes, Cartwright’s script is a belter, it always was, but what makes this production hit is the way it’s staged and performed.

The Royal Exchange, with its famous theatre-in-the-round, already intensifies everything. There’s nowhere to hide. But Cartmell pushes it further and it’s a masterstroke. Supported by Leslie Travers’ design and Aideen Malone’s lighting, the action spills beyond the round and into the aisles, into spaces you’d normally treat as neutral. You don’t just walk in and take your seat. From the moment you step inside, you’ve walked into a world already in motion. Characters appear before you’ve even settled, playing fragments of themselves, little vignettes that feel like you’re catching real lives mid-sentence rather than being introduced to neat little “roles”. 

And it’s relentless. Even at the interval you’re not really released from its grip. The vignettes keep surfacing outside the round, and at one point the space turns into a disco. It shouldn’t work. It could so easily feel like theatre doing a bit of theatre. But it doesn’t. It feels like the Exchange remembering it can be daring.

Then there’s the cast, and you can see straight away why this has become one of the hottest tickets in town. On paper alone it looks like someone’s raided the guest list at an awards do. You’ve got Johnny Vegas as the evening’s devilish compère, plus names like Sir Tom Courtenay, Lesley Joseph, Lucy Beaumont and Shobna Gulati. It’s stacked, no question. But the best thing is it never feels like a parade of celebrity turns. It’s a proper ensemble, thirteen strong, and the production has the confidence to let the less familiar faces shine too. Jake Dunn and Laura Elsworthy, in particular, land moments that stop you in your tracks.

The stories hit with a visceral punch, and what really gets you is how quickly the room can shift. You’ll find yourself laughing, comfortably, thinking you’ve got the measure of the tone — and then, in a heartbeat, you’re at the edge of something guttural. Proper emotion. Comedy tipping into despair, tenderness appearing in the cracks — it’s a hard trick to pull off, and this production does it again and again without feeling forced.

And yet, not everything here quite hits the mark. When the glitter and exuberance shine this brightly, you can sometimes forget to notice what’s being lost in the glare. I’m not convinced the vignettes always mesh into a whole as smoothly as Cartmell intends, and the spareness of the design in the round can feel a touch understated compared with what’s happening everywhere else in the building. The modern flourishes, particularly the use of video, occasionally pull focus away from the raw power of the live performance right in front of you. And while there’s value in letting the play sit in its original moment, part of me wondered whether leaning harder into the present day might have sharpened its bite. The impulse to use every nook and cranny of the Exchange is thrilling, but it can also tip into excess. Sometimes, less really is more.

If the Exchange has been searching for its zest again after a few lean years, Road feels like a loud, confident answer. This is the one that sets tongues wagging, not because it’s “important” in that dull, worthy way, but because it’s alive. It takes risks. It trusts the audience. It makes the building part of the story. And it reminds you what theatre can do when it stops playing safe.

Verdict: An invigorating, exuberant revival of Jim Cartwright’s Road, and a bold statement of intent for the Royal Exchange as it launches its 50th anniversary season. Selina Cartmell’s directorial debut is ambitious and unrelenting, turning the building into part of the action, even if the inventiveness sometimes outpaces the storytelling.

What: Road
Where: Royal Exchange Theatre
When: 18th February 2026