NORTHERN Broadsides shows Oliver Goldsmith's comedy a suitably broad side.

Director Conrad Nelson knocks some of the effete stuffing out of the 1773 play, giving it a bit of northern welly. He also adds music, lending the piece a suggestion of a rough-hewn operetta.

Goldsmith's play is a comedy of mistakes, misunderstandings and deceptions, resting on one of the silliest plot devices around. Young Marlow is a devil with the ladies, but only if they are of the lower orders; once faced with a woman of equal standing, he splutters, stammers and stares at the floor.

On this unlikely handicap does the play spin, giving Oliver Gomm great scope to jump between lusty jack-the-lad and tongue-tied twerp, an opportunity he grabs with relish. On this hook, too, is hung the story of Kate Hardcastle (Hannah Edwards), who stoops to conquer Young Marlow. This requires a class-swapping deception of her own and she hides behind a thick Liverpudlian accent, splendidly carried off in a nice comic touch.

Hardcastle (Howard Chadwick, blustering up a storm), lord of his manor, is mistaken for a landlord, a deception spun by the mischievous Tony Lumpkin, a role Jon Trenchard runs and skips through with nimble glee.

Mrs Hardcastle (Gilly Tompkins, giving it a touch of the Mollie Sugdens) preens beneath a tower of a wig, and indeed the wigs and Jessica Worrall's designs in general are in keeping with the lively spirit of the drama.

The other love affair, uniting the dashing Hardcastle (Guy Lewis, dashing with gusto) and Miss Neville (York actress Lauryn Redding, enjoyably, almost alarmingly hearty), runs its own bumpy course too.

She Stoops To Conquer, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday. 01904 623568