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Brief Encounter is an adaptation of Noel Coward's original which takes bits of the play, the film and Coward's songs and comes up with something which is very much a brand new work. Deftly mixing cinema, theatre and music hall it's certainly an impressive bit of stagecraft - adaptor/director Emma Rice has taken Coward's Still Life, taken it apart, then reassembled it without worrying about what the purists might think.

One of the main changes is that the focus is subtly shifted away from the married woman who meets the dashing doctor in a train station cafe when he removes a piece of grit from her eye. For Milford Junction is a place brimming over with romance. In this more proletarian telling of the story, the love between cafe proprietor Myrtle (Annette McLaughlin) and her Albert (Joseph Alessi) is just as important as that of the resolutely middle class Alec (Milo Twomey) and Laura (Hannah Yelland). And then, perhaps even slightly lower down the social ladder, is the earthier love of serving girl Beryl (Beverly Rudd) and her Stanley (Christopher Price). Having only seen the film I'm not sure how much this shifting of emphasis is down to Coward or Rice's adaptation - it's certainly fairer but as these couples aren't full of tortured emotions it's a shift which perhaps lessens the sense of drama. The performances are uniformly strong with Hannah Yelland particularly good as the repressed Englishwoman who certainly manages to put the Milf into Milford Junction.

Despite all the projections, the songs and the impressive set - or maybe because of them - the play never seems to have the emotional impact of the film. I might be horribly wrong but I think that a straight version of the play might have drawn you in to Alec and Laura's world more successfully. But then this Brief Encounter isn't Coward's and isn't intended to be. On its own terms it's certainly enjoyable but the reactionary in me couldn't help thinking something along the lines of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'.

Brief Encounter runs till Saturday April 25.

For more information view:
www.ambassadortickets.com/Theatre-Royal-Brighton