WHILE the classics and big budget musicals have their place of course, theatre, for me, is at its best when it throws you headlong into an unfamiliar and often uncomfortable world.

Your preconceptions about people labelled and disregarded by society are challenged.

So it is with Pests, a play that gives a voice to two sisters, damaged by their upbringing and struggling survive in a pig sty of a flat.

Writer Vivienne Franzmann makes you care deeply about Rolly and Pink, played with often painful realism by Ellie Kendrick and Sinead Matthews.

Rolly has been in prison and is pregnant, she’s taught herself to read and harbours ambitions of building a better life for herself. She’s also kicked her drugs habit. Unlike Pink, who is far less stable and can bear the thought of losing the little sister she was separated from when they were children.

The Royal Exchange Studio is a perfect venue for this absorbing and emotional play, and if collaborations between the RET, Royal Court and Clean Break can produce theatre of this high standard, future collaborations are a must.

If you like cosy drama with a happy ending, Pests probably isn’t for you but this piece had a profound effect on me, as it will for anybody brave enough to see it. Utterly compelling and totally unmissable. Over 16s only.

* Until March 22. The box office is on 0161 833 9833. Star rating - *****