Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie is possibly one of the most celebrated books on   childhood of its time, and has lead to numerous highly praised dramatisations.  

The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School is certainly one of the most celebrated theatre schools around, so a combination of the two - BOVTS putting on a production of Cider With Rosie for their graduating performance - should, it is not unreasonable to believe, be a very promising prospect.

The story revolves around Laurie Lee's autobiography, of the same title as the play, in which he recounts his childhood and early manhood, stretching from the end of one World War to the beginning of another. There's a very summery feel to a lot of the language of the narration, which along with the time of life being described leads to a hazy, romanticising-of-memories feel. Ultimately, by the end I personally felt more than a little happy, but that perhaps has more to do with my love of good story-telling than of the actual story in question. 

The costumes were of the period, and very carefully put together, colours reflecting the mood of character and scene. It only sounds like a little point, but when the play tells more of a series of stories than one straight plot as such, the mood created by all these things does matter a lot. The lighting is similarly well carried out, whilst the various ways in which sheeting and other props are used to create backdrops are clever without making you sit up and notice them more than what is being acted out on stage.

From the set we see before the play starts, it is clear that the aim of the game here is flexibility. The set in the New Vic Studio is a two-tiered job, a tree branch dividing the two sections with the trunk of the tree in question placed on the right of the stage. The front room of Lee's house is under the left side of the branch, with the upper room above, whilst the area to the right, by the trunk, is the outside world on the upper and lower levels.

 This flexibility is continued through the cast. Anyone who has been a student of drama at any level - from GCSE upwards - will be quite aware of the need to show one's ability in "multi-roling", and in this piece it is used as well, with all but two of the cast playing more than one role, and those two being the central two characters. There really is nothing much to find fault with in the acting, the actors all prove willing to play their parts, not always the case when so many of these parts are young children.

 This being the Old Vic Theatre School, there may well be some stars of the future on view here, and on tonight's showing this would not be any major surprise.

 In terms of entertainment, this production is brilliant for just about anybody. There are more than a few moments of wonderful humour, and whilst the overall feel of the thing is perhaps a bit "nice" for those who want to see something with a bit of bite, it does have its moments of poignancy as well. At the end of the day, if you can stomach the cutesy-ness, and if you want to see something that you can just sit back and grin to yourself at, for the right reasons, give this a try. If your tastes are a little more high-brow, then watch this space - I'll be back at the BOV reviewing Shakespeare's Merchant Of Venice, also put on by the Theatre School, tomorrow evening.

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