TEENAGE pregnancy, dysfunctional families, race, and the treatment of gay people are all subjects that pop up five times a day before meals even in the Archers these days.

But in buttoned-up 1958, when a Taste of Honey hit the stage, they were explosive and taboo subjects.

Written by the teenage Shelagh Delaney, the play single-handedly revitalised British theatre and, three years later, when it was filmed, helped to do the same for British cinema.

That, though, was the Beatles era.

Since then, times have changed a bit. Southend theatre group Lindisfarne has now restaged a Taste of Honey, and the obvious first question is, does the play still pack the same theatrical force?

The answer is yes, but in a quite different way.

A Taste of Honey now carries weight as a historical record, with its evocation of old industrial Manchester (Salford), a world of back-tobacks, factory hooters and the great cargo-vessels plying the ship canal (the production makes good use of the music of Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger to convey this). The overwhelming strength of the play, and something which makes it a genuine classic, is its humanity.

Shelagh Delaney could drill herself into people’s hearts and souls to produce wonderfully convincing portraits of ordinary people, in a way few other writers can match.

Helen (Carol Hayes) is the original portrait of a feckless, selfish, volatile mum, who neglects and despises her daughter Jo, but continually returns to her for emotional sustenance – and to help screw up her life once again.

Jo herself can claim to be the original stroppy teenager, though she has an intelligence and sensitivity that makes you yearn to see her strengths better channelled than into endless fights with her mum.

Helen decamps with her latest fancy man, a bumptious car salesman (Dave Goodson), leaving the pregnant Jo to fend for herself.

But Jo has a friend, Geoff, who moves in with her.

He cooks, cleans, and pressurises Jo into reading books about birth and childcare.

Geoff has his own issues (he had been made homeless for being gay, at a time when that was a crime). But he makes the perfect partner.

Then mum returns like a bad demon, and the scene is set for a final sad parting of the ways.

Shocking? No way. But it does emerge as a timeless piece of storytelling about people’s ability to mess up their lives.

Jeremy Battersby’s production does a fine job in bringing out the period character of the play.

But it’s the characters who linger in the mind, and they could belong to any time, any era.

They are impeccably well played, with a stand-out performance from Megan Terry as Jo. This is Megan’s first major role, and she is clearly set to go places.

TOM KING