ONCE we worked the land, now the land doesn't work any more for so many farming families.

The once green and pleasant landscape is changing. DEFRA stands for rural affairs, not agriculture; non-farming enterprises, modern industries, are establishing rural roots; fox hunting has been given its P45. Conservation, more than food production, is the predicted way forward.

Foot and mouth, that creeping plague of 2001, put another nail in the coffin of stalwart, family farmers: men like Ben Handley (Colin MacLachlan), the King Canute figure of Fields Of Gold, a new commission from Alex Jones. Jones has worked on farms in Worcestershire, and that personal knowledge of dairy herds and farming communities informs his bittersweet comic family drama, wherein he interweaves almost as many story strands as Love Actually but far more successfully.

Sheaths of corn stand golden as sunrise in one of the theatre-in-the-round doorways: a symbolic exit for traditional farming. Straw is strewn all around the kitchen floor of the Handleys' Cumbrian farm. Beyond the fencing the Army is conducting training exercises. Grandmother Lily (Judy Wilson) has Alzheimer's, a condition calmed by the herbal relaxation of school-skiving, dope-smoking grandson Jem (Andrew Turner), who is having problems with locating his sexuality and with contacting the crop circle-spreading aliens.

Self-sacrificial sister Jule (Claire Lams), with a first-class diploma in agriculture, has her eye on an organic farming future and her heart set on southern soldier Dave (Andrew Brooke). For beleaguered Ben, the bank, foot and mouth and whisky are the wolves at the door; wife Mags (Susan Twist) has to absorb all the family and farming ills, with no one giving anything back in return.

Laurie Sansom's production hits its emotional straps, and Jones delivers moving scene after scene of rising, fractious, heart-rending drama and flinty, defiant humour. This repertory run ends on November 20 but Fields Of Gold deserves to sow its seeds at plenty more theatres.

Box office: 01723 370541

Updated: 10:59 Wednesday, November 03, 2004