There’s nothing quite like a revival interval of 16 years to make you feel plenty old. This Neil Armfield-directed staging of The Book of Everything had its memorable first run in 2010. Happily, it’s wearing the passing years a lot better than I am.

Rushed into Belvoir’s 2026 season after the programmed production of an adaptation of Craig Silvey’s novel Runt was cancelled in the wake of his arrest, this production – originally co-produced with Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image – plugs a gap with an immensely likeable work of warmth, wit and wisdom.

The Book of Everything. Photo © Brett Boardman

The story (adapted from Dutch author Guus Kuijer’s novella by Richard Tulloch) revolves around nine-year-old Thomas Klopper, a bright and dreamy kid growing up in post-war Amsterdam, where the trauma of Nazi occupation is still fresh in people’s minds.

Finding solace in fantasies inspired by his staunchly religious father’s nightly Old Testament readings, Thomas sees things that no one seems to notice: freak hailstorms; tropical fish swimming in the canals; a plague of frogs. These he records all his observations in a notebook – his Book of Everything.

Thomas also has...