Review – MOON TIGER at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Monday, February 3 to Saturday, February 8, 2014.

IT transpires that Moon Tiger is the name given to a slow-burning mosquito coil that eventually becomes ashes - much in the way that life’s dreams and desires can sometimes end up.

To an extent it is the fate which befalls the ‘heroine’ and her relationships in Simon Reade’s stage adaptation of Penelope Lively’s 1987 Booker Prize winning novel, but this is in no way a slow burner.

Although Claudia Hamilton is, in the main, an independent, strong willed and highly intelligent woman, played superbly by Jane Asher, she discovers that life can occasionally deal from the bottom of the pack.

A distinguished historian and war correspondent, Claudia – now in her seventies - is determined she is going to write one final tome, a complete history of the world, as she lies dying in a hospice watched over by family, friends and other visitations.

However, the focus of this historical exploration becomes her world, her life and experiences, good and bad, as time shifts rapidly back and forth around her hospital bed. It's all admirably achieved with minimal props – just a few chairs and a screen which projects dates and places.

Reade’s adaptation, along with the efforts of director Stephen Unwin and designer Timothy Bird, rise to the challenge of ensuring the book’s events and characters have a slick, stylish and pacy presentation.

One moment Claudia and her brother, who are uncomfortably close, are children playing on Charmouth beach in 1920, while later they are in conversation in the 1980s, and this is shortly after she has met the man of her dreams, a tank commander, in the north African desert in the Second World War. But it’s easy to follow and there is never any confusion over what is happening or why.

There is a general theme throughout about the perception of our take on history either as a country or an individual, how myths can evolve around facts and figures and how the mind replays events of decades ago. History, like life, is not an ordered procession.

Claudia is a constant on stage as we eavesdrop on her experiences – her pleasures and tragedies, while her family, friends and lovers – portrayed by a talented support cast of Hilary Tones, Christopher Brandon, Philip Cumbus, Jade Williams and Tim Delap - switch admirably from main to minor roles as adults or children.

Overall Moon Tiger is presented as a watchable and enjoyable product enhanced not only with injections of emotion and humour, but definitely by a mesmerising performance from Jane Asher.