It is 50 years since Harper Lee wrote the novel that stunned America and the literary world. It drove straight to the heart of the racial hatred that scarred the southern states.

It also paints a vivid portrait of small town America which still resonates in the 21st century.

It is a simple story of a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman and the lawyer, Atticus Finch, who tries to defend him. But it is told through the eyes of his daughter, Scout, for whom the experience is a revelation of the complexities of the adult world.

Christopher Sergel’s stage adaptation uses an adult Scout as narrator which gives the benefit of hindsight to a child’s observations.

It is beautifully staged with a deceptively simple set.

The performances, without exception, were compelling. Duncan Preston is totally at home as the unassuming Atticus, a widower bringing up his two children in the Depression and teaching them the virtues of truth, compassion and tolerance in a turbulent community.

Grace Rowe is the young Scout, boisterous, funny and gullible. Her older counterpart is Jacqueline Wood, elegant, poised but with a hint of the child she was.

Matthew Pattimore plays the adolescent Jem, Scout’s brother, with a perceptive touch of immature edginess.

Jacqueline Boatswain is crisp and forceful as Calpurnia, the Finch family’s cook and housekeeper.

There’s brutal contrast between the humble dignity of the accused Tom Robinson (Cornelius Macarthy) and the violent crudeness of his accuser Bob Ewell (Mark White).

Clare Corbett as Ewell’s daughter, the alleged victim, portrays the perfect mix of fear, ignorance and stubbornness.