Michael Morpurgo’s multi-award winning tale comes to life in a new stage adaptation by Daniel Buckroyd. The Butterfly Lion introduces us to Bertie, the son of a British couple attempting to farm the South African veldt, and his relationship with an orphaned white lion cub. The two become fast friends, and when Bertie is sent off to boarding school, and the lion is sold to the circus, Bertie promises that he will find the lion again.

Gwen Taylor is funny and sincere as Bertie’s love interest, Millie, and somehow manages to be perfectly believable as she plays both Millie as a girl and an old woman. “True stories don’t always end the way we would wish them to”, warns Millie, and indeed the tale of Bertie and the white lion encompasses love and loss, and brings us to the muddy trenches of the Great War.

The sets, designed by Juliet Schillingford, are remarkable for their versatility and their effectiveness. A few simple pieces become an English boarding school, a butterfly-strewn hillside, the cosy kitchen of a great house, a watering hole in South Africa, a battlefield in France, and much more. The actors’ interaction with simple parts of set was crucial in conveying the different things they were made to represent: a slope upstage, for example, became a tree when Bertie clambered up it precariously to get Millie’s kite, and a muddy ridge when soldiers cowered on it, hunched close to the ground.

No less impressive is the use of puppetry in the play, with the white lion himself being represented by a majestic puppet created and directed by Sue Pycroft, and skillfully manipulated by Lloyd Notice.

The Butterfly Lion is based on a children’s book, and perhaps does not engage fully with some of the challenging themes that run through it – colonialism and the First World War – in the way a story written for older audiences might. However, one gets the feeling that this would have been too great a scope to cover. Adult audiences will still appreciate the play for what it is: a beautiful and emotive tale of enduring friendship.

Touching, wistful and nostalgic, The Butterfly Lion will delight children and adults alike.

The Butterfly Lion is at the Cambridge Arts Theatre until Saturday 5th October. A post-show discussion will take place on Wednesday 2nd October, with Michael Morpurgo attending the Q&A session.