ROBERT GORELANGTON

Animal Farm

Birmingham Rep, touring until May 28, 1hr 30mins

Old Major is the fattest pig in this puppet cast. With his shaggy hair and creamy jowls, he looks vaguely familiar. I bet he’s called Boris, backstage.

The goat, horse, hens, geese, etc – all a delight – join him in this barnyard yarn, animated by ninja-like handlers dressed in black. The slaughter and servitude must stop, says

Old Major. His Leninist veggie dream of freedom is born.

Cue soaring classical music!

This, then, is George Orwell’s famous 1945 novel, which depicts socialism as fascism with a bleeding heart. The 1954 film version was the first animated movie to be given an X certificate. Times have changed.

Adapted and directed by Robert Icke, this is aimed at families with children of 11 and over. The cast, after all, is very strokable and has two bickering, comedy hens with Penelope Keith accents. But Icke’s production is no light viewing. Indeed, it reveals a full-cream horror show, honouring the Orwellian spirit of disgust at venal, human piggery.

Bloodthirsty nippers will love it. The animals go to their deaths in various brutal ways in the great battle – a thrilling set-piece. Executions, hunger or overwork rack up the casualties as the pig-class enforces the revolution.

Boxer, the splendid shire horse, is arguably the best of Toby Olié’s terrific puppets – his plodding, slow demise through overwork the show’s sob factor.

But it is the boss pigs who siphon the charming out of farming. Comrade Napoleon is a thug and his enforcer Squealer – male in the book but a sow in this – comes with the wheedling voice of the party line. ‘All animals are equal’ morphs into ‘But some are more equal than others’ as the hogs turn into trottered humans.

Unfluffy, powerful theatre, oinkingly recommended.

CHICKEN WIRE: A puppeteer controls the movements of one of the farm’s roosters