Director Hayley Horton has assembled a young, talented and energetic cast who sing and dance exceptionally well for The Hills Musical Company’s production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

The musical features six characters who express the many gems of child philosophy, wisdom, angst, incredulity and imagination displayed throughout the decades in Charles M Schulz’s famous Peanuts comic strip.

The cast works hard throughout the show to entertain the audience, but it is not easy for adults to convincingly play five-year-olds, even if they are in bright shirts and big shorts. Most of the actors present reasonable characterisations, but Schulz’s comic lines need to be delivered with the subtlety, nuances and surprising wisdom of very small children.

Occasionally an actor gets it absolutely right: Millicent Sarre does well to capture the innocence of Charlie Brown’s sister, Sally, who skips, daydreams and ponders the meaning of the world. The brilliance of Schulz’s child observations is encapsulated in the moment when Sally drops her ice-cream cone and asks if anyone else realises her life is a Shakespearean tragedy.

Amy Nagesh is a strident, effective Lucy Van Pelt and she combines well with Omkar Nagesh, who is, believably, the philosophical child who loves to play classical music on his piano. Buddy Dawson has good moments as Linus Van Pelt, but he sometimes loses the intellect and child-like qualities and becomes almost robotic. Gareth Wilkes struggles to find a convincing Charlie Brown and Fahad Farooque seems to be angry as Snoopy instead of discovering the playful, imaginative child within.

There are terrific scenes, such as when Snoopy fights the Red Baron, but there is minimal transformation in this production.

Designer Jamie Richards has chosen to plaster snippets of Peanuts images over the set, which means the actors are constantly playing against the original images. The lighting is unimaginative and all too often lights the entire white stage instead of highlighting the one or two actors on stage. A piano, kennel and bus in bold colours and cartoon style work well, and numerous boxes painted with Peanuts images are used to help set the scenes, but add little.

Musical director Peter Johns has the band playing well and the cast singing and harmonising superbly, though the songs are not memorable and Vanessa Redmond’s lively but somewhat cliched choreography does little to bring them alive.

The cast of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown are very good singers and performers; however, they seem to be desperate to entertain us rather than finding the inner child and playing their scenes more truthfully. Their difficulties are accentuated by the style of show, which demands they slip into large song and dance numbers.

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown makes particular demands on performers.  At times their talent shines through and they achieve this goal, but the director and cast need to understand a little more about the fragility of life as experienced by very young children which leads to comedy and profundity.

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown is being presented by the Hills Musical Company at Stirling Theatre until May 9.