THEATRE REVIEW: Travels With My Aunt - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Tuesday, May 17 to Saturday, May 21, 2016.

THIS is a somewhat unusual production where a mere cast quartet play all the parts - close on 20 - and make a damn good job of it!

One of the country’s newer theatre companies, Creative Cow won new friends and admirers at Malvern with their version of A Christmas Carol shortly after the festive period, and you can bank on them having gained some more - although this take on the best-selling Graham Greene novel may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

What is still a wonderful fictional work, with Greene’s splendid characters and storyline, his original novel has in the past been portrayed as a musical and now this excellent comedy adaptation by Giles Havergal.

Our cast of four - Richard Earl, David Partridge, Jack Hulland and Katherine Senior - rotate the roles of Colonel Hakim, O’Toole, Yolanda and others as smoothly and seamlessly as a rotisserie, if not a touch faster.

All are dressed identically - in grey pin-striped suits topped off with a bowler hat.

One moment one is the reticent and retired bank manager, Henry Pulling, until the baton changes hands, and all four also give us Henry’s outlandishly eccentric Aunt Augusta, with Richard Earl’s high-pitched version quite outstanding. Hardly surprising with a number of pantomime appearances to his credit and also having been in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Havergal’s adaptation needs a cast that is at ease with each other, which feeds off one another simultaneously and is led by a director who can keep the steady pace going. Amanda Knott does just that with her four talented charges.

It’s a cleverly entwined plot, but not too subtle, as Aunt Augusta’s adventures take her, and dahlia loving Henry, from Brighton to Buenos Aries and beyond, and into the company of some shady characters. Espionage, money laundering, dodgy dealing and romance are thrown into the pot to provide a comedy mix that rises well.

It takes a little getting used to at first, but if you stick with it the slick action grows on you and the fun gradually gallops along in a most entertaining couple of hours.