There's a telling moment in the recent film, Capote, when a well-wisher turns to Harper Lee and says: "I hear you've got a novel coming out, too - it's a children's book, right?"

As the first novel to filter complex adult dilemmas through a child's perspective, To Kill a Mockingbird held huge implications for the future of literature, but posed a major problem for stage adaptation. Where do you find a young teenager capable of fulfilling the dual role of principal character and omniscient narrator? Or do you reduce the first-person impact of Scout's experience, thereby missing the whole point of the book?

The answer in this instance comes in the tiny, remarkable form of Bettrys Jones's Scout. Jones infuses the production with a powerful surge of precocious energy, capturing all the obdurate, scabby-kneed aspects of the character while suggesting that Scout's greatest strength, and ultimate tragedy, is to possess an adult sensibility within a child's frame. The scene in which she defuses the hatred of a lynch mob through the application of naive wisdom is exquisitely handled. And her final admission that "we ain't got an awful lot more to learn - 'cept maybe algebra" is heartbreaking and hilarious at the same time.

Duncan Preston is equally outstanding as her father, Atticus, a white lawyer prepared to risk reputation and personal security by defending a black man. Preston conveys a wearied air of inevitable defeat; and by accepting local produce in lieu of a fee, forms a rare example of a decent lawyer prepared to work for peanuts.

Director Michael Buffong paces Christopher Sergel's adaptation with great authority, while Simon Higlett's dust-bowl set adds a whiff of wilting mimosas to the air of southern discomfort.

· Until October 7. Box office: 0113-213 7700.