Life Of Pi, Lighthouse, Poole

BASED on Yann Martel's critically-acclaimed (mostly) 2002 Booker Prize-winning novel, this production, by the tiny and sadly financially-threatened Bradford-based Twisting Yarn theatre company, makes for a colourful, exuberant, thought-provoking and occasionally gory couple of hours.

The first half is about Pi, a 16-year-old Indian boy, growing up in his parents' Pondicherry zoo, trying to come to terms with religion - and an irritating cricket-mad elder brother. It's loud, brash and fun - until the shipwreck that turns the story from a pocket Bollywood musical with lavish sets, lots of drums and lashings of action in to the life-or-death struggle aboard a lifeboat that follows the interval.

Pi's companions on the boat are a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), an orang-utan ... and a Bengal Tiger called Richard Parker. Fairly soon, as you'd expect, it's just Pi and Richard, and that's the way it stays for the best part of seven months, although the time fairly flew by in the company of a talented cast, not least Tony Hasnath, in the lead role, on stage pretty much throughout.

This show continues tonight and tomorrow, including a matinee.