Everybody in Exeter should go and see this.

Northcott-goers are used to locally-set productions by community groups. Last year, the acclaimed Matthew Miller told a history of Exeter, and became a must-see show. So, too, should Harry in the Moonlight.

This, though, is a professional production, written by Alex Shearer, a local lad who moved away but in writing this play, clearly expresses the place Exeter still has in his heart.

In a household in St Thomas during the floods of 1960, Jack and Monica struggle to keep above the breadline. They have four oddballs as lodgers to keep them afloat.

The story is told as a flashback, an adult Evvy narrating events as she remembers them, occasionally stepping back in to the action to play herself as a schoolgirl.

"Harry in the Moonlight" is a muse see play for people from Exeter

The lodgers bring with them a complicated love triangle; two Catholic girls, both called Mary, one in love with the other, while the other is in love with fellow lodger Colin, a boxer in training, who's had his brains knocked out.

The fourth lodger, Harry, whose filthy laundry keeps his landlady occupied, is a lonely sole, with the social skills of a wardrobe.

Hannah Watkins, as narrator/daughter Evvy commands the whole performance masterfully.

Through her, we see the teenage intrigue held by sex and love. Some audience members may be slightly discomforted by mentions of lesbians and, well, solitary sexual activities, but for Evvy it's an exciting, different concept, and her jokes are as frank as any youngster's.

Old Harry is played by Steve Bennett, the Northcott's yearly pantomime dame almost since the foundations were put down, and from panto he brings quick-fire costume changes.

I confess that having seen his panto dame routine three times, I wondered how well he'd be able to step from that well-entrenched role, but here, he portrays the old loner with skill and pathos.

The writing is inspired. It's not a comedy as such, though I defy anyone to get through it without laughing out loud. On the light side, there's a fiendishly clever sketch about listening to a television with no pictures.

But the jokes also work as a contrast to the desperately sad onset of events - deaths caused by the floods, and cancer. Just as you're about to reach for the hanky, there's a rubbish joke about Barnstaple being up north and it brings the house down.

Whether you lived through those events of 1960, or you're just interested in the city's history, (there are some excellent displays all about it in the foyer), this play depicts the horror very well.

Everyone will see themselves in one of the characters; the frustrated housewife, the carefree husband, the thick boxer, the old loser, the catholic chambermaids (one straight, one lesbian) and the excited schoolgirl - bet you can't guess which I am.