David Walliams's Mr Stink was expertly played out on a joyful summer evening at Saltdean Lido.

A stage was set up in frront of the lido with chairs and room for families to lay their picnic blankets to enjoy the intimate four-man play.

The book was adapted for the stage in a way that gave Samantha Dart the chance to capture your imagination with long soliloquies.

She played the part of Chloe, a schoolgirl neglected due to her mum's biased attention given to her sister Annabelle.

Chloe befriends Mr Stink, a smelly old tramp who moves into her shed and provides the encouragement she has longed for.

He tells her to keep a diary and pursue her dream of writing and we follow her battles with her brash mother amid the troubles of her sister and father too.

There was some fun interraction with the children in the crowd and the whole Heartbreak Productions cast were amazing in how they kept the stage busy and captivated the audience.

Howard Scott Walker played a fantastically lovable Mr Stink, addressing the crowd in a warm way.

There were plenty of laughs and the crowd danced along to the songs that were snuck into the story, including a quick bit of Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson.

The children loved it and queued up for autographs at the end.

Four stars