David Wood's adaptation of Philippa Pearce's classic novel has had two award-winning productions and gets another very good one from the Birmingham Stage Company. The show delivers a genuine tingle down the spine as it tells the story of 1950s schoolboy Tom, who is sent to stay with his childless aunt and uncle in an old house and discovers that, when the grandfather clock in the hall strikes 13, he can slip back in time. Here he meets Hattie, a young and unhappy Victorian orphan, who is neglected by her horrible aunt and despised by her rowdy boy cousins.
Pearce was a wise woman, who undoubtedly would have got on extremely well with Stephen Hawking. Not only does Tom's Midnight Garden offer a fascinating speculation on the nature of time, but also on our perceptions of it. Tom is a ghost of the future, Hattie one of the past - and they both share a present reality. Loneliness spreads like bleach through both their lives, dissolving time itself.
These emotional nuances are explored well in Graeme Messer's production, which, although a little unevenly acted and over-emphatic in the opening scenes, is neatly realised, particularly in the mask work that recalls the miniature figures that appear on the clocks in European town squares.
The best theatre and writing for children cuts across all barriers of age, and this is a show in which the old will recognise their younger selves and the very young get a fleeting glimpse of a yet unlived future.
Watching Tom's Midnight Garden gives you the feeling of looking back and tripping over yourself coming the other way. It is lump-in-the-throat stuff for adults and mysterious and magical for children.
· Until January 24. Box office: 0121-616 1519. Then touring.
