The perfect show for a warm summer night

Anna Himali Howard, the director of this production which she has also scripted with Holly Robinson, grasps how site-specific it is, and, amid the rustling trees on its hot opening night, she succeeds in drawing young and old theatre-goers alike into the magical garden that Burnett wrote about so memorably.

It is a story of the triumph of humanity and a number of damaged human beings finding ways to mend and therefore it’s never purely been a children’s story. There have been a few films made out of it – most notably a 1993 adaptation with Dame Maggie Smith – but if ever the story has found its perfect setting and medium then this is it.

There’s a splendid central performance from Hannah Khalique-Brown making a believable journey from a haughty and entitled schoolgirl brought up in British India to a fully paid-up member of the human race in rural Yorkshire. There are some memorable turns on the way from Theo Angel, as the unhappy bed-bound Colin whose life she transforms, and Richard Clews as a plain-speaking local gardener. Molly Hewitt-Richards gets most of the laughs as Martha the maid who takes no nonsense from the children.

This is an assured, stylish production that marks another triumph for Drew McOnie as artistic director of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. This is turning out to be a vintage summer for the venue.