Adults have a tendency to spoil children's stories by preaching morality at them.
While Holly Robinson and Anna Himali Howard give this much-loved tale an invigorating, witty re-fresh, they undo some of their good work by making it over-long, over-written, and over-woke.
Frances Hodgson Burnett's book wrapped up complex ideas about shameful secrets, repressed grief, loneliness, and class into a magical story about the healing power of nature.
Given anti-heroine Mary Lennox's origins in colonial India - where her uncaring parents are swiftly despatched by cholera - it's a neat step to cast her and sickly cousin Colin as the Anglo-Indian children of two beautiful sisters.
The theme of stigmatised disability though is rather bludgeoned by giving additional characters limps, stammers, and incurable paraplegia - the point of Colin being made ill by the wrong-headed behaviour of the surrounding adults is shifted to the swift embrace of his differently-abled self.
Then there's a same-sex kiss, improbably looked upon fondly by turn of the century Yorkshire folk.
On the plus side, the language, sounds, and folklore of the Indian sub-continent beautifully drift through this very English setting; in Colin's dead mother Lata reincarnated as Sharan Phull's dancing robin, in the exotic design of the Secret Garden locked up for a decade by her grief-stricken husband; and the arrival of feisty auntie Padma (Archana Ramaswamy) to sort out these emotionally-repressed Englishmen.
Both children are spoiled and rude but also lonely and neglected, and Hannah Khalique Brown as Mary and Theo Angel as Colin nail their amusing directness and vulnerability.
Richard Clews does a lovely turn as gruff Yorkshire gardener Ben Weatherstaff who gets entranced as the children bring the garden - and themselves - back to life.
But he rather upstages Brydie Service's underpowered Dickon.
The narrative chorus, repeating phrases from the book, lends the piece a poetic tone, but there are so many added scenes that it is unforgivably long for a family show, and Himali Howard who also directs, ends up testing the patience and breaking the emotional spell she casts.
I did also wonder why the natural setting in a glade in Regent's Park was obscured by designer Leslie Travers' high-walled set, and why with all the talk of 'wick' and 'roses', the Secret Garden is created with paper flowers rather than real ones.
The Secret Garden runs at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre until July 20.
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