Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Royal Exchange, Manchester, review But he is the biggest bastard of them all. He cheerfully cuckolds one of his married workmates, and when his mistress tries to abort the child he has fathered with the traditional regimen of a hot bath and gin, he ends the evening bedding her sister instead. Reisz omitted this from the movie, perhaps feeling it was too strong to get past the censor in 1960, or that it would alienate the audience. And Finney himself brought a winning swagger and a wicked twinkle to the role of that made Seaton's flaws more tolerable. Unfortunately Perry Fitzpatrick brings no such compensating charm to the role. Constantly attending to his teddy-boy quiff, his Seaton has an unrelenting cocky insolence as well as a honking inexpressive voice that put me in mind of a sea-lion at the zoo deprived of its fair share of fish at feeding time. Dunster's adaptation fails to turn the episodic novel into a satisfyingly shaped drama, and his staging does little to evoke that vanished England of back-to-to back terraced houses and smoky pubs. And the frequent sex sequences are more embarrassing than erotic. Some passages do work. The home abortion scene is superbly staged, creating the atmosphere of a genre painting by Degas or a play by DH Lawrence. And Clare Calbraith brings a fine mixture of sensuality and heart to the betrayed mistress throughout, with touching support from Jo Hartley as the "simple" Emler, who so loyally attends her friend at her time of need despite longing for a baby herself. The fairground scene, in which our unlovable hero finally gets a much deserved come-uppance, is stylishly staged, complete with witty theatrical evocations of a ghost train and the waltzer, bleary rock-and-roll music and a bruising fight sequence. But despite our anti-hero's famous insistence that "whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not" - a line nicked by the Arctic Monkeys as an album title - Arthur Seaton is in fact just what he seems - an unappealing, cold-hearted braggart who repels the audience's sympathy throughout this often misjudged production. Until April 7.