MARK Babych has chosen Shelagh Delaney's A Taste Of Honey for his debut production as Hull Truck Theatre's artistic director.

Mark, who held the same post at the Bolton Octagon for ten years, was appointed to his new post last May and anticipation of his first show has been building ever since. "No pressure!" he says.

He has picked one of the most influential plays of its generation, written by Delaney when she was only 18 and premiered at the Royal Court in London in 1961 with its story of 17-year-old Jo being desperate to break free from her wayward mother, Helen, in 1959 Salford.

Jo’s instinct for survival and pursuit of happiness leads her to fall in love with Jimmy, a sailor on shore leave.

Abandoned by her mother, Jo has her courage tested yet again when Jimmy returns to sea and she discovers she is pregnant. Defiant in the face of convention, Jo moves in with her friend Geoffrey, a young art student, who assumes the role of surrogate father to her unborn child. As their relationship deepens, Jo discovers that her independent spirit is both her torment and her salvation.

"The choice of play was for a mixture of reasons," he says. "One is that I'd never directed it before. I'd looked at it before but never felt drawn to it, but maybe because I want to do more work by women at Hull Truck, and specifically by authentic working-class women's voices, I read it again and my interest in the play picked up.

"If we were going to have a new arc of work, then I felt I should go back to the play that greatly influenced writers like Amanda Whittington and Tom Wells. My work as a director has been associated with the northern voice, such as Jim Cartwright, and I found that A Taste Of Honey was singing to me like it had never done before."

A second factor was that Hull Truck had never staged Delaney's play previously. "It's a chance to do a play where I can explore its latent theatricality, and the central relationship in it is a fabulous one for the actresses to interpret and make their own," says Mark.

He has cast Rebecca Ryan as Jo, an eye-catching signing for Hull Truck after her roles as Debbie Gallagher in Channel 4's Shameless and Vicki McDonald in BBC1's Waterloo Road. “I’m really happy to be starring in such an archetypal play by an inspirational writer," says Rebecca.

"Being from Manchester this is a role that’s close to home for me and I’m particularly excited to taking this production out on the road with such an illustrious company as Hull Truck Theatre."

Hull Truck Theatre and Derby Theatre present A Taste of Honey at Hull Truck Theatre, until April 19, as part of the Yorkshire Festival, and on tour at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, May 20 to 24, and York Theatre Royal, July 8 to 12. Box office: Hull, 01482 323638; Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk