RIDING Lights director Paul Burbridge calls it the brick-wall point, that moment when parent and teenage child collide in their complex pursuit of love, security and self-worth.

There are collisions aplenty in Love Fifteen, a study of parenting written by Bridget Foreman with workshop input from Joseph Rowntree and Fulford School pupils to ensure an authentic teenage voice.

This devised piece was first staged by the York Christian theatre company's junior Roughshod offshoot at the start of this year, and now returns for a tour under the senior Riding Lights banner, but with only one change of cast: Tim Doolan taking his time to hit his stride in the irascible father's role alongside Katie McLean as the more understanding mother.

Catherine MacCabe plays the rebellious 16-year-old daughter Sophie and the outstanding Stewart Pile is Daniel, a taciturn 14-year-old suffering from depression.

All wear city gent attire, topped off with bowler hat and Dr Marten boots, a uniform that crosses Monty Python's Ministry Of Silly Walks with the socio-political theatre of Brecht and Berkoff. In other words, here is comedy with a conscience and a talking point.

Rather than the traditional kitchen table for the teen-parent battleground, Riding Lights shifts the setting to a car, more particularly the inside of dad's new designer-coloured Jeep, after Burbridge noted how many rites of passage take place on four wheels. To add momentum to the relentless domestic warfare, Sean Cavanagh's revolve stage is regularly set in motion by an actor's boot.

Foreman's issue-based play takes the short, sharp form of a problems-page comic strip rather than a deep psychological examination of the communication problems and simmering resentments of tired, well-off, working parents and their growing-pained children.

That immediacy works well, leading to differing reactions at key points from the teenagers and parents in the audience.

Indeed, at the outset of the second half, audience members are invited to re-route a couple of the family arguments, involving teenage drinking and shoplifting, to defuse the points of conflict.

Interestingly, the two youngsters who take on the father role call for more calmness, but one adult talks of parental fears being a decisive, protective factor in flare-ups.

Two sides to every family story, as ever.

Love Fifteen, Riding Lights Theatre Company, Friargate Theatre, York, until 15/09/01, 7.30pm nightly. Box office: 0845 961 3000.