Two-thirds of the way through this production, I find my notes read: "Grim, spare." As the long (3hr 40min) evening draws to a close, the audience must feel so sad as they watch every character on stage bared to their bones. For the characters themselves, expectation and hope dries up. Everyone is sucked into a vortex of attritional desperation and corruption.

Which means this is a successful, challenging and thought-provoking play (and how often can one write such words these days?) It helps if you are of an age to take in easily passing references to Harold Wilson, Ronan Point and UDI; but this is not essential, for playwright Peter Flannery - while documenting that period in the 1960s and 1970s - creates a timeless drama. There will always be corrupt creatures such as T.Dan Smith (elected leader of Newcastle City Council in 1960), the architect John Poulson and Det Chief Insp George Fenwick of the Metropolitan Police (all of whom are portrayed here, but not explicitly so). The fact that the audience leaves the theatre to the perky 1997 New Labour theme of Things Can Only get Better is a nice piece of harsh subtlety.

Our Friends in the North is wracked with a desperate cynicism and dramatic artifices that make you know that everything is going to go pear-shaped. There is a sense of desolation and moral decay everywhere: housing corruption in Newcastle, venality in Westminster, trade-offs in Rhodesia (I found this element of the multi-layered play the least successful) and pay-offs in Soho. Occasionally, Flannery appears to take a sledgehammer approach to hit home points that have become obvious, but a degree of theatricality is called for in a piece constantly jumping plot-lines and locations.

d=3,3,1The Northern Stage company has brought this political polemic to Oxford with a production that opened last year in Newcastle, 25 years after the play was first staged. I never saw the acclaimed adaptation Flannery did for BBC television in 1996, but the drama works well on a bleakly dressed stage in the theatre, and the ensemble playing by the 15-strong cast (most of them playing multiple roles) is strong.

There is one outstanding triple performance from Sonia Beinroth - especially as good-time girl Rusty - and the trio of Northern lads whose life journey this play records are well drawn by Daniel Ainsleigh (Nicky), Neil Armstrong (Tosker) and especially Craig Conway (Geordie). I enjoyed the general creepiness engendered by Rod Culbertson in both his roles.

In her programme notes, director Erica Whyman writes: "We hope our production raises more questions than it answers." You can say that again.