‘Bland” and “treacly” are adjectives often used to describe the film versions of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Maybe writer James Graham and director John Terry recited the mantra “I must not be bland or treacly” as they sat down at computer keyboard, or started each day’s rehearsal, because their new stage version is decidedly unsentimental.

The play mirrors the book as Huck and his friend Jim float their way down the Mississippi River on a raft. Both are runaways – Jim is an escaping slave, and Huck is more than eager to leave the “sivilizing” [sic] influence of Miss Watson (Rosalind Cressy) behind him. “Mercy me, can’t you stop your wicked ways?” she cries. As they travel, Huck and Jim encounter an array of characters, the most memorable of whom is the self-styled Duke of Bridgewater: “Call me Dook”. When things get tricky, the duke instantly turns himself into a reverend, or becomes “David Garrick the Younger”.

Ian Harris has a whale of a time with this part – there’s an excellent touch as ‘Garrick’ prepares to give his Hamlet, and other cast members infiltrate themselves into the audience, rotten cabbages ready to throw at the stage. As events unfold, Joe Speare’s solid, thoughtful Jim is just the right foil to Graeme Dalling’s Tigger-like Huck: leaping all over the place, he is equally fleet of foot and thieving hand.

Quite rightly, adapter Graham and director Terry see no need to diffuse or sanitise Mark Twain’s satirical take on escape, freedom, and racism – complete with its use of the ‘n word’, and lack of 20th-century political correctness. Although it’s performed with zest on an atmospheric driftwood set (Garance Marneur), this Theatre, Chipping Norton, co-production does sometimes lose momentum, and the feeling that Huck and Jim are undertaking an epic journey down the Mississippi. As a result, there are occasional longueurs before Jim triumphantly discovers he is a free man.

Huck is at The Theatre, Chipping Norton, from March 2-6. Box office: 01608 642350.