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John Steinbeck’s magnificent novel gave a vivid picture of America during the Depression, when whole communities, particularly in the mid-West were disrupted by the economic crash and forced out onto the road searching for work wherever they could find it.

In his other social documentary, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck focussed on a similar crisis of social impoverishment, where families fled the American dustbowls, migrating from Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to California where they found ill-paid work as itinerant fruit pickers.

Here the focus is tighter, we are not on the road in this instance but settled temporarily in a farm where some of the men have held jobs for several years.

As George ( Michael Legge) and Lennie (Benjamin Dilloway) arrive out of nowhere with their bedding rolls under their arms anticipating a few dollars on pay night, they enter a world where dreams of a better life are the one thing that keeps several of the men alive.

Here there is very little in the way of excitement except a small-town brothel which charges a couple of bucks for a girl’s favours, and the boss’s young wife, (she has no name) an over-sexed tease frustrated with her husband Curley and looking for a quick lay on the side.

Yet a sense of frustration mounts, not always helped by Liz Ascroft’s curious set, which combines a kind of film studio skyscape with a Brechtian alienation trope, where the actors sit in the wings watching the action while also doubling up as the off-stage band. I would have thought that a play such as this screams out for total naturalism, but obviously I’m wrong.

Sometimes accents seem to go awry, and the steel girders which flank the platform stage can distract from the action, but in a strong cast there are some splendid performances under Roxana Silbert’s direction, which manage to grip you in a way only good theatre can.

Therefore praise must be given immediately to Norman Bowman’s Slim, a seasoned farm hand with a heart of gold, a solid rock in a community of men where moral distinctions seem on the slide. In every way Mr Bowman is fine.