Of Mice and Men is a story less about what is happening, and more about what is going to - or what might - how how much we care.

The strength of a dramatisation therefore, lies not only in the performances but also in how those foreboding moments are treated, and whether they play the correct subtle counterpoint beneath the American-dream tale of George and Lennie's days.

Last night's Touring Consortium/ Birmingham Rep show chose not to overemphasise these scenes: George telling Lennie in the first minutes where to hide "if something bad happens;" Lennie accidentally killing a pup; Carlson shooting Candy's dog because he is too much trouble.

The audience was left to take from them what it wished, we may not always have been enough.

A beautiful glossy-coated husky called Alaska was gloriously miscast as Candy's foul-smelling old mutt, but performed impeccably.

The pick of the human cast was undoubtedly Dave Fishley's powerfully believable Crooks, the black, crippled stable-hand who has seen hundreds of labourers pass through this way, dreaming of getting their own little farm.

His nuanced and charismatic performance lent crucial power to the moment when even this world-weary man starts to believe in George and Lennie's dream of living off "the fat o' the land".

The play rests on William Rodell as George, who was hardworking and solid as a simple labourer with simple dreams, but fell just short of leaving the audience heartbroken when his dreams are shattered and his lifelong friend lost to him.

Kristian Phillips' Lennie was adorably slow, but Ben Stott's Curley was perhaps too young even for such a weak character.