In 1992, Priestley's play, until then regarded as a worthy, wordy rep warhorse, came across as an explicit condemnation of the Thatcher years and her notorious remark that "There is no such thing as society". This time around it seems like a call for solidarity and responsibility at a time of grave international danger, and a reminder, surely relevant to the Blair premiership, that actions matter more than fine words.

The great imaginative leap that Daldry makes in his enthralling, rigorously intelligent expressionistic production is to stage the action simultaneously in two different time zones - the complacent Edwardian era, in which Priestley set the play, and wartime England in the 1940s, when he actually wrote it.

Thus the Birling family occupy a cramped doll's house of an Edwardian home, crammed together in a tiny sitting room through which we initially only glimpse the baying, immaculately dressed figures. But the house, perched on girders, is surrounded by the devastation of a 1940s bombsite, and the desire for a better future.

Ragamuffin children play among the rubble, and there is a crazily tilted red phone box in one of the stalls boxes. We are in the realm of a liberating theatrical imagination, of the kind Priestley himself pursued in experimental works such as Johnson Over Jordan

What's remarkable is that Daldry's re-imagining of the piece, greatly helped by Ian MacNeil's stunning design, in no way undermines the play's sturdy traditional strengths.

The apocalyptic design, with rain falling onto the cratered stage, a silent chorus of 1940s figures who seem like a jury weighing the Birling family's guilt, and the dramatic and disturbing score by Stephen Warbeck all add to the epic atmosphere of a play that was originally confined to a dining room.

And when Goole delivers his key speech directly to the audience - "We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other . . . and if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish" - there is a frisson of recognition as the audience realises just how applicable Priestley's words are today.

The acting is outstanding, at once stylish and full-blooded. The great Niall Buggy is especially fine as the Inspector, his misleadingly bland face contradicted by penetrating blue eyes. He captures the compassion, the contempt, the moral urgency and above all the other-wordly nature of this inspector of souls.

Diane Fletcher's high-definition performance of an Edwardian matriarch unforgettably puts one in mind of Danny La Rue playing Lady Bracknell, while Emma Gregory and Andrew Leonard electrifyingly capture the stirring consciences of the troubled Birling children.

It's a devastatingly fine production which makes one hope that Daldry's budding film career will not draw him permanently away from the stage.