NOT for a long time has a production of such emotive and intellectual power been placed before the people of Bolton.

Geoff Bennett's masterful production, set in 1613, centres on Doctor John Hall, his wife, Susanna, the eldest daughter of William Shakespeare; Jack Lane, a well-born but dissipated young student of Dr Hall's; and Rafe Smith, a local merchant.

History records that Susanna Hall brought an action against Jack Lane in the ecclesiastical court at Worcester for his having slandered her with allegations that she carried venereal disease and had slept with Rafe Smith, and this is the springboard for the action of the play.

As the decent but frosty John Hall, Michael Haworth gives us a seamless performance that captures the moral integrity and domestic anguish which torments him, as he correctly guesses what has happened.

Helen Price Aindow as Susanna brings together the complex character who illuminates the central themes in the play. Intelligent, attractive, forceful and sensual, when she passionately tells Rafe that "love changes us -- love is alchemy". There is not a dry palm in the house.

Wrestling between strong Puritan views and where his feelings take him, Barry Hall's Rafe burns off a lifetime of suppressed humanity clamouring to get out, and Glenn Robinson excels as Jack Lane, whose refusal to compromise ultimately destroys him.

With support from Helen Pierce Jones as conniving servant Hester, Fred Mayers as the Bishop and Michael Tatman as a chilling Vicar-General, this superb piece is a truly outstanding piece of theatre.

The Herbal Bed by Peter Whelan,

Bolton Little Theatre.

Until January 24.