The experienced storytellers of The Birmingham Stage Company certainly know what it takes to please a young audience. After recent sell-out Oxford Playhouse performances of George’s Marvellous Medicine and Danny the Champion of the World, they are packing in the punters again with writer Stuart Paterson’s version of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

On tour since 2005, this gripping production (director Neal Foster) follows Kipling in not glossing over the harsh realities of jungle life. That this is a world whose inhabitants must kill or be killed is never forgotten. We see “nature red in tooth and claw,” in an oft repeated phrase — first coined, of course, by Lord Tennyson — from one of the catchiest musical numbers by composer BB Cooper and lyricist Barb Jungr.

For this tour the role of hero Mowgli is being handled very capably by Samuel Hargreaves, a young actor straight out of Liverpool Theatre School. His winning stage persona and excellent singing voice augur well for his career prospects. Mowgli’s good humoured approach to life, coupled with his regard for loyalty to family and friends, clearly won him many friends among the rapt youngsters around me in the stalls on Tuesday afternoon.

As his arch-enemy, the man-eating Bengal tiger Shere Khan, Peter Sowerbutts exudes precisely the right degree of self-regard, contempt for others and sheer malice. Possessed of a very powerful voice, he is further assisted in inducing fright by the truly blood-curdling growls supplied by sound designer Nick Sagar.

The ‘good’ characters are no less well-presented, among them Mowgli’s chief instructor in jungle law, the affectionate brown bear, Baloo. Iwan Tudor and Natasha Lewis win hearts, too, as the wolves Akela and Raksha, the lad’s adoptive ‘parents’. There are other notable performances from Laura Waggott as the python Kaa and Zephryn Taitte as the arrogant hunter Buldeo. It’s a fine holiday treat for the kids.

Continues until Saturday. Tickets: www.oxfordplayhouse.com or 01865 305305.