One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Phoenix Theatre Company, Chorley Old Road United Reform Church Hall., Runs until Saturday May 11.

ONE of the main characters in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest says that electric-shock therapy is like combining the sleeping pill with the electric chair and the torture rack.

The Phoenix Theatre Company's production of Dale Wasserman's insanely-exciting play did not leave the audience in agony or feeling sleepy -- but it did leave them thoroughly electrified.

The stage looked perfectly clinical as a 1970s American psychiatric ward with its bright lights, basic furniture and whitewashed walls. But there was nothing sterile about the acting.

John O'Connell's Randle P McMurphy was the spark that set the stage alight.

The oppressive Nurse Ratched (Joyce Smith) would have preferred that they stared at the walls for three hours instead of engaging the audience.

But rowdy Randle, who faked insanity to escape the work farm, had other ideas .

He brought some girls inside for a night of fun and for a moment it seemed the lunatics were running the asylum.

But it all ended in disaster for Randle -- who really did get a buzz in the final scene -- and it did not do stuttering Billy Babbit (Jonathan Simmons) much good either.

I will not reveal what happens at the end, suffice to say the woman next to me had tears in her eyes.

You really would be mad to miss it.