Animal Farm, The Courtyard review ★★★★★

A thinly veiled Stalinist dystopia played out by talking farmyard creatures poses quite the challenge to stage — especially on a fringe budget. But Tree Folk Theatre transform the narrative complexities of George Orwell's Animal Farm into engaging action. Without sacrificing the themes and nuances of novel, the production is pacy enough to keep you engaged for over two hours.

Actors manning handmade puppets bring the farm animals to life with skilled, slick physical theatre. The cast convey the posture and personality of the farm animals without falling into oinking, neighing parody. The result showcases the subtly of Orwell's humour.

We were particularly touched by the trio of horses — matronly Clover (Bethany Blake), flighty, flirty Mollie (Caitlin McMillan) and dogged, dutiful Boxer (Jerome Millington-Johnson) — who animate the animals' toils with flashes of humour and pathos.

Minimal props and sparing sound effects are used inventively to evoke first a bustling farmyard then a sense of impending menace. Though the faithful adherence to Orwell's original means it's a long, wordy show, and inevitably the narration has some lulls.

If you're left unenthused by reading Animal Farm, you won't be converted by this small-scale stage adaptation. But it does justice to the drama and depth of Orwell's writing and the clarity of the story-telling also makes this fringe show a great way to enthuse older children (especially as Animal Farm is a fixture on the exam curriculum).