Dramatisations of Laurie Lee’s Cider With Rosie — and there have been many since the book’s publication 50 years ago — must inevitably tackle two big problems. The first arises from the extensive gallery of characters, some mentioned only fleetingly, that the author offers in creating the picture of his early life in the Gloucestershire village of Slad before all was changed by the arrival of the motor car and the other paraphernalia of modern life; the second from the fact that his story is told thematically rather than chronologically.

Confusion for the audience is the likely consequence of both, and confusion — alas — is what is supplied by Daniel O’Brien’s new adaptation for the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, which visits the Playhouse this week. A cast of six exceptionally talented actors (and, in some cases, musicians) plays the Lee family. One, Antony Eden (right), is confined to Laurie himself, while the others range widely across age and gender to portray his siblings and many villagers. Bizarrely, director Abigail Anderson lets most have a crack at Mother, with the result that we get no consistent picture of what her son called a woman possessed of “near madness”, with “her crying for light, her almost daily weeping for her dead child-daughter, her frisks and gaieties, her fits of screams . . .”

At the end of the overlong first act, a couple I followed into the foyer were expressing the wish that they had reread the book before coming. I went home later and did just that.

Happily, there is still much to enjoy about the play, not least the music — occasionally churchy, usually folky — specially written by one of the cast members, T. J. Holmes. He also makes a significant contribution to the fun in the role of pugilistic farmer’s son Spadge Hopkins whose method of dealing with a hectoring schoolmistress is to place her on top of a bookcase. I also much admired the work of Amy Humphreys and Devon Black as two feuding old crones, and that of Ms Black again as a swaggering ex-villager, now made good in New Zealand, whose brutal murder provides the play’s (and book’s) most shocking scene.

As one who has spent happy hours in Lee’s old haunt of Slad’s Woolpack pub, I must compliment the actors (and dialect coach Mary Howland) on the absolute accuracy of the Gloucestershire accents. Here is one thing that remains unchanged since Laurie’s youth.

Oxford Playhouse until Saturday. Tel: 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com).