John Steinbeck’s classic tale of the friendship between two farm hands in Depression America is brought to the stage in a new adaptation at Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Directed by The Rep associate director Iqbal Khan, this is a rich and insightful exploration of people on the margins of a society that doesn’t know how to accept and include difference.

Khan and the cast have given the characters and the story plenty of nuance so that we’re quickly pulled into the drama and held there until its tragic end. With a diverse cast bringing their own experiences to the production, there is an authenticity to the story and its characters.

The relationship between the two central figures, George and Lennie, is portrayed with depth and delicacy by Tom McCall as George and Wiliam Young as Lennie. Here is a George who initially seems totally fed up with Lennie, calling him crazy, a liability, even a burden when he says he’d be better off travelling alone. But then we see George’s inherent loneliness, his own vulnerability, and we realise that he is just as emotionally dependent on Lennie as vice versa.

Wiliam Young brings his own experience of complex learning disabilities to the role of Lennie, a huge man with the mind of a child. Young’s Lennie tries to do what George tells him, he genuinely wants to do the right thing, but he doesn’t know his own strength. And when disaster strikes we see the importance of his ties to George as biggest fear is his friend’s reaction.

Steinbeck’s play is very much about outcasts and we see loneliness and the need for human connection in many of the characters.

Reece Pantry’s Crooks, the only black man on the farm who is excluded from the bunk house because of his colour, shares his own pain with Lennie. His Crooks is a man who sees the bitterness of his own lot and knows there is no escape from it.

And there is Curley’s Wife, who isn’t even named, and who is so lonely she attempts to befriend the farm hands, not realising that they both mistrust and fear her. Maddy Hill brings lots of empathy to the role, particularly when she shares her own history and hopes for the future with Lennie.

Lee Ravitz pours lots of character into the elderly Candy, depicting him as a prating old man who feels he has little left to offer life – and yet who also has his dreams. However, in his attempt to depict this crotchety aged character, Ravitz is sometimes difficult to hear, which is frustrating as he does have some good lines.

Not surprisingly Khan also draws out the resonance of Steinbeck’s tale for today. All the men working on the farm are scratching out an existence, and although they have big dreams, simply getting through each month is struggle enough. This idea is brilliantly brought to the fore when Ravitz’s Candy tells of one night of his life which may have cost him more dollars than he could afford but which has given him a memory to sustain him ever since.

Ciarán Bagnall’s spare sets, with basic bunk houses and rooms where crates make do as chairs, underlines the shabby existences of these men. And Kay Wilton’s costumes also focus on the essentials – here are guys in utility wear denim dungarees with the only spots of colour being the print dresses worn by Curley’s Wife.

Of Mice and Men portrays a harsh existence in which men will battle for their place in society but, in the friendship of Lennie and George and the glimpses of comprehension between other characters, it also reminds us of the importance of human relationships.

Four stars

Reveiwed by Diane Parkes at The Rep, Birmingham, Thurs 24 March. The production runs at The Rep until Sat 8 April. Then showing at Malvern theatres, Tues 25 - Sat 29 April.