The Secret Garden. Regent’s Park Outdoor Theatre.

The trigger warnings for Holly Robinson and Anna Himali Howard’s version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s much loved children’s novel The Secret Garden counsel of “ableist and colonial language”. It is a statement of intent as much as a caution. The solid adaptation, which one supposes might be labelled “woke” in some quarters, reimagines Hodgson Burnett’s story through anti-colonialist and anti-ableist lenses. “This garden belongs to all of us” one of the characters tells us and gosh do they mean it. The writers’ point here is that the only gardens which really bloom are inclusive gardens. “Anything will grow anywhere” if it gets the chance, is the message.

Kolkata. 1903. Glamourous Indian socialite Champa (Avita Jay) and her English husband Captain Lennox (Patrick Osborne) are partying it up. Their miserable, spoilt, ten-year old daughter Mary (Hannah Khalique-Brown) is left in the care of her magic-obsessed Ayah; if there is one thing the colonisers and the oppressed agree on it is the utility of having children brought up by staff. The entire household, save Mary, succumbs to cholera. The child is sent to Yorkshire to live with her grieving, reclusive Uncle Lord Archibald Craven (Jack Humphrey) whose late wife Lata (Sharan Phull) was sister to Champa. Archibald’s brother Dr Craven (George Fletcher) is there too, stuttering, and suffering that classic English cultural affliction of being unable to express what he means. “It looked for a moment like he was going to say something else” is a persistent narrative motif here.

Friendless and alone the unfortunate Mary is warned by housekeeper Mrs Medlock (Amanda Hadingue) “not to go wondering and poking around”. That of course is exactly what she does. With aid of parlour-maid Martha (an ebullient comic turn from Molly Hewitt-Richards) and gardener Ben (Richard Clews in impressively grumpy yokel mode), Mary finds the key to a mysterious, magical unkempt garden. Martha’s moor-child brother Dickon (Brydie Service) aids Mary in clearing a decade’s worth of weeds. Nocturnal household wonderings soon see Mary encounter her disabled cousin Colin (a show-stealing Theo Angel) who is multiple times more spoilt than Mary and treats his servants “like a British viceroy”. “I killed my mother, I’m an invalid, and I’m about to die” says Colin so you can see why he is such a misery guts.

Leslie Travers’ beautifully rendered set is doors, doors, and more doors. Doors on wheels. Doors flat on their back to represent flowers beds. And an imposing pair of doors set in the centre of the rear wall, recessed with multiple Mughal-style candles, that forms the entrance to the secret garden itself. The doors are mostly closed and locked shut to Mary and Colin, as much because of their ‘otherness’ – disability and Indianness – as for any other reason. The barriers here are not just physical: the feel of secrets, of dark unspeakable things being hidden from both children, is omnipresent.

Under the care of the Mary, Dickon, and Colin the secret garden, a slice of India in Yorkshire, springs to life. Travers gives us Indian-inspired paper art decorations to represent flowers and new growth. Dyed Sari-style ribbons climb skyward up trellises. Splashes of Gulal, the traditional name given to the coloured powders used for some Hindu rituals, are cast against the cream of the rear walls as the blossoms bloom. “An orange has grown in Yorkshire” says a visiting Padma (Archana Ramaswamy) sister to Lata and Champa, who turns up fresh from aggravating against British rule in the sub-continent. In deference to the Indian feel we even get a Bollywood-style song thrown in towards the end, as well as incidental sitar music.

As the garden grows so the children spring into life. In Hodgson Burnett’s original Mary discovers her innate kindness and empathy, and Colin learns to walk again. Here even magical, mystic chants cannot grant the boy the power to move. The anti-ableist point here is that Colin does not need ‘fixing’ and is not defined by his disability. What he really needs is to find the magic (and self-respect) in what he can do, rather than what he cannot.

Robinson and Himali Howard’s script zips along in a combination of dialogue and narration that shifts breathlessly from character to character. The writing style makes for momentum, as does Himali Howard’s brisk direction, and effectively camouflages some fairly long-winded exposition. Even so the show drags a little in an over-long second half. Polly Jerold’s casting – gender blind in the case of Dickon and Colin (who share a cheeky kiss at one point) – adds to the play’s feel of conscious inclusivity. “I knew him first is not a good argument for dominion” one of the lads tells a jealous Mary.

Writer:  Frances Hodgson Burnett (in a new version by Holly Robinson and Anna Himali Howard)

Director:  Anna Himali Howard