The grunts, whinnies and baas supplied by a large and enthusiastic cast of appropriately garbed young actors transported us last weekend to a location that could only be Animal Farm.

What a thoroughly impressive piece of work this proved to be from Oxford Playhouse Young Company 16/22 — the numbers supplying the age range of the performers.

The production made use of Ian Wooldridge’s lucid stage adaptation of George Orwell’s novel. Now 30 years old, this version of the script will be familiar to Oxford theatregoers from its use by Creation Theatre Company for a revival at Oxford Castle in 2008.

Running for 90 minutes without interval, the show fairly zipped us through Orwell’s cautionary tale concerning a revolution that went wrong through the steady transformation of the liberators into oppressors.

This soon-to-be-more-equal-than-others group, is, of course, composed of the pigs, led by Napoleon (played at different times by Donald Craigie and Chloe Jacques-Warton) whose spokespig is the no less aptly named Squealer (Guy Kilner and Josh Parris).

The two in one role approach — which applied, as well to, among others, Sam Walls and Niall Walker as the doomed, dumb workhorse Boxer — gave most of the cast their moment in the spotlight but did make things a little confusing for the audience.

This did not apply to the chocks-away pigeons of Dan O’Neil and Tim Smith. Perhaps they had only two of those splendid uniforms!