“She’s just a manky girl!” sneers one of Lilly’s captors early in the second act. Well, after so long in the Indonesian rain forest, having fled there on the back of an elephant to escape the tsunami, she’s hardly going to be pristine. Ah, but she has been in the company of a flange of orang-utans: what the heavily accented man said was “monkey girl”.

On transferring this adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s book from Chichester, one of co-director Timothy Sheader’s decisions has been to create Lilly. Ava Potter, who played her on the press night, alternates with two boys who play Will, as Morpurgo’s young protagonist is in the novel. In all other respects, their story is identical: grieving for the loss of her/his soldier father in Iraq, Lilly/Will and her/his mother visit the latter’s native Indonesia in 2004... beach elephant... tsunami... jungle... kidnapped by poachers, along with baby orangs... and let’s not spoiler the whole evening.

Samuel Adamson’s adaptation is efficient, allowing space for atmospheric sequences of choric vocalise (Sheader deploys large teams of young people to, in effect, be the jungle, the ocean etc.) and pseudo-gamelan accompaniment. The centrepiece of the production, though, is the magnificent animal puppetry, created and directed by the Gyre & Gimble outfit. A tiger, the group of orang-utans (all without legs: their prehensile arms and the puppeteers serve more than adequately) and above all the three-person, lifesize Oona the elephant are all remarkably lifelike and immensely articulatable. We unreservedly believe in Oona’s bond with Lilly/Will, and the playful young orangs elicit more than one “Ahhh!”

This is a mixed blessing, however. Morpurgo’s message about deforestation for palm oil harvesting and the imminent extinction of numerous species is hardly advanced unobtrusively, and can feel rather pious. That leaves the puppets as potentially not just the stars of the show, but in too many respects its raison d’être. This presentation has obviously been influenced by the techniques – and the success – of War Horse; it would be a shame if, despite all his achievement as a young people’s novelist (and Children’s Laureate 2003-5), Morpurgo became known in a theatrical context simply as the man behind all those marvellous animals.

Written for the Financial Times.