It all comes good in the last twenty minutes and the cascading conclusion is well worth waiting for.

In fact, Stoke on Trent has been waiting 38 years to see this play. It was drafted by Arthur Berry, who had a long association with Director Peter Cheeseman and his Victoria Theatre, in 1988 and has lain on a dark shelf ever since. It was never performed then, possibly because it was never worked up into a final play. But now, to celebrate the centenary of Arthur's birth, the current New Vic team has dusted it down, done the necessary re-writes and thrust it on stage for all to see.

It does still feel 50 years old (perhaps more) - set in a Stoke of old where housewives scrubbed their doorsteps, the walls between the terraced houses were paper thin, and there was constant rumble of industry and demolition. It was the Stoke Berry grew up in and he sprinkles his script with long lost street names and regular references to 'duck' to describe both waterfowl and people's affection for each other.

A lot has happened since he first penned this play. Kitchen sink drama has moved on and, sadly, his innovative plot lines have been plundered by ever-desperate present-day TV soaps. So there is now a sense of inevitability about his story of Phoebe Salt. In the climax, even her father, Sammy Salt, admits he could “see it coming”. But it is still a cracking story and there are final twists to enjoy as the 'righteous' older generation prove themselves not to be all they claimed to be. And it's their misdoings that seal the heroine's fate.

What this play has to have is an outstanding actor in the title roll and this production is blessed with a brilliant performance by Isabella Rossi as the hopelessly contradictory, sweet-and-sour Phoebe - charming, vivacious, loveable and appallingly self centred. You don't have to be a Stokie girl to play a Stokie girl, but in this case it works wonders. Plucked straight from drama school, Isabella has announced herself to the theatre world and will go far. She has the remarkable ability to be as sweet as pie and down right wicked in the same sentence, especially towards her lovers.

Berry gives her some great lines to describe her character's arrogance - “I've got hair like shadows on water” - her desperation to get out of deadbeat Stoke - “It's like a fly paper, and I'm the fly”- and of her betrothed - “It's like going out with a library book”.
Only showbiz can save her soul  but when opportunity knocks, her working men's club comedy act 'Salt & Pepper' - with her hopelessly effete partner Cyril Pepper (entertainingly played by Andrew Pollard), simply doesn't cut it. We know, because we're allowed to see it, and it is one of the funniest un-funny things in the theatre; a brave comic highlight in an earthy evening.

I also enjoyed how the play was booked-ended - the derelict 'Steptoe and Son' back parlour being put to rights to begin and show and then being dishevelled again at the end; a allegory of Phoebe's life.

Every industrial northern city needs its reflective repertoire of social realism plays and now, thanks to Arthur Berry, so does Stoke. Whatever Happened to Phoebe Salt is a like a restored and polished museum piece; the New Vic's tribute to community history. I suspect loyal Stoke folk will flock to it, if only to find out what did really happen to Phoebe Salt.

Three stars

Reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme. Whatever Happened to Phoebe Salt continues to show at the venue until Saturday 21 June.