It has grown from obscurity to cult respect, but Hal Ashby’s 1971 film is still well at the obscure end of cultishness. It is one of the most whimsical movies of its period, telling of a discontented 18-year-old rich boy falling in love with a relentlessly rebellious yet charming 79-year-old woman. Director of this stage version Thom Southerland has pulled a few of the story’s teeth and frankly copped out once or twice, but it is impressive how much of Colin Higgins’ unsettlingly chucklesome screenplay remains.

This is, I suspect, largely because the stage adaptation (from 1974) is by Higgins himself. It is adroit at folding the variety of film locations on to a single stage, at not assigning too much extra dialogue to fill in the visual gaps (in particular, I heaved a huge sigh of relief when the reason for Maude’s indefatigable joie de vivre was conveyed with an elliptical phrase or two rather than spelt crashingly out) and at allowing the tale to take its own shape.

Bill Milner keeps a tight rein on Harold, which is sometimes unhelpful in his scenes with Maude but always pays off when interacting with his controlling mother (an excellent Rebecca Caine) and engaging in his hobby of painstakingly staged mock suicides. Sheila Hancock – now 85 herself – could not be bettered as Maude: at once impassioned and mischievous, she makes every one of her “misdeeds” credible.

Higgins and/or Southerland do well to recognise the importance of music: the film resonates with the songs of Cat Stevens. Here, the supporting actors play Michael Bruce’s score on whatever instruments they can handle: Joanna Hickman, as well as portraying a clutch of excruciating computer dates for Harold, even provides a cello rendition of the other end of telephone conversations. One of the two serious missteps is the dippy song that brings Harold and Maude together; the production would have done much better simply to acquire the rights to perform Stevens’ “If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out”. This further weakens a stage ending which is already tipping into sentiment. Nevertheless, it succeeds overall both in itself and as a nudge to seek out the film.

Written for the Financial Times.