Vickers and Sam rule the night buses of Leeds. Their world is a dark, hyper-real one of thumping music, graffiti, unlit backstreets, smashed glass and late-night drinkers.

Leeds University graduates Ben and Anna are from the other side of the city; the one of bright lights and big business.

Late one night these two worlds collide, leading to an adrenalin-fuelled battle between old and new Leeds.

Bus is a new play that takes a fast-moving, twisted take on the two sides of the city - trendy city centre flats versus red brick back-to-backs, terminally dead-beat hometown versus Harvey Nicks.

The play, by Leeds writer Mark Kirkby, is running at the West Yorkshire Playhouse as part of its Northern Exposure festival showcasing the work of new writers. Mark developed the play through the Playhouse's Summer Shorts scheme, giving new writers chance to have their scripts performed for an audience.

Bus is directed by Alan Lane, the Playhouse's assistant director, who became involved with the play when he took it on as part of Slung Low, a collective of emerging artists that he's director of. Alan, who also launched Backing Talent, another new artists' showcase at Bradford's Theatre in the Mill, directed a rehearsed reading of Bus during last year's Northern Exposure.

Having assisted the Playhouse's artistic director Ian Brown on last year's productions of Twelfth Night and Alice in Wonderland, and Barrie Rutter on Wars of the Roses, Bus marks Alan's directorial debut at the theatre.

"It's set in the world of night buses, when you get a whole new perspective of a city, " says Alan. "It's about old versus new Leeds and asks 'who does the city really belong to?' Incomers Ben and Anna try to claim the city as their own but when the two worlds collide all four are forced to take a look in the mirror.

"The play looks at the conflict between the fashionable loft apartment side of city centre Leeds - a life that Vickers wants to get into - and the life that goes in the terraced houses around the city, but it's not an issue-based play.

"It's set in a fantasy world and draws on inspiration from comic books - think Sin City and the Matrix. Ben makes comic books about the underworld of Leeds, even though he doesn't live in it, and the play draws on that fantasy element. It's a very contemporary play that draws on the influence of film and video, the challenge was to get that across visually.

"The entire play is set on two buses but the staging is quite sparse. I worked with students from the Harrogate base of the Leeds Metropolitan University who took photographs of Leeds at night which we've used as scenes that go past the bus. I gave them the script and they took the pictures, some of them are in an exhibition called Exposing Leeds in the foyer during the run.

"Everyone involved in the play has had a huge impact on its artistic vision, it's been a very open process.

I'm working with a great cast, crew and script and I'm in a fortunate position in that everyone works so well together."

The play features a soundtrack from new Leeds bands and fast-paced dialogue from the cast of four. "Real people don't talk in dramatic monologues, they talk in short, snappy sentences, so that's how the script developed, " says Alan.

"Mark has done a terrific job with this play, and he found the Summer Shorts scheme incredibly useful.

"It gave him the opportunity to see a 20-minute script performed for an audience, for him to be putting on his first full-length play just a few months later shows how quickly this scheme can lead to this kind of result."

Two of the playwrights to come through Alan's Slung Low programme at Bradford were Richard Warburton and Lucy Hind who are subsequently now both showing their work as part of Janus, a creative project fusing performances, readings and live music running as part of Northern Exposure.

Bus runs at the West Yorkshire Playhouse from May 17 to 27. Ring (0113) 213 7700.