Given that Michael Morpurgo has written more than 100 books, theatre-lovers can look forward to a good many more nights out. The work of the former Children’s Laureate, whose triumphant War Horse is about to gallop into the West End, lends itself felicitously to dramatic adaptation, packed as it is both with incident and startling emotional truth-telling.

This one-man show is almost fable‑like in its brevity — we’d be happy for more than these 50 minutes — and clarity of message, about the redemptive power of music down the generations.

Venetian violinist Paolo Levi is about to perform a concert to mark his 50th birthday but has a family secret that he’d like to share with us first. Thus unfolds a moving account of his young self being shown a dusty violin long abandoned by his parents, who met when they were forced literally to play for their lives in an orchestra in a concentration camp.

Director Julia McShane rightly opts for an unfussy production and an uncluttered stage, the better not to pull focus from Morpurgo’s pacy narrative, slickly adapted by Simon Reade. Andrew Bridgmont plays the violin beautifully, which is obviously a good start for the role of Levi, and brings an appealingly beady-eyed, childlike intensity to his portrayal of a curious young boy drawn inexorably to the sounds of a busker’s late-night violin.

The horrors of the camps are not dwelt upon, as Morpurgo reassures us that out of degradation families, as well as sublime music, can survive and flourish.
Until 4 April (0870 033 2733).