Brief Encounter may have started life as a stage play, but David Lean’s 1945 film, about a passionate and doomed extra-marital affair, is widely considered to be the definitive version.

The pressure, then, on a director bold enough to consider bringing it back to the theatre, is immense. Thankfully, Emma Rice, in her directorial debut for Kneehigh Theatre, rises to the challenge with quite some punch.

From the off there is a freshness and physicality in her approach that marks out the production’s territory. While it never shies from acknowledging its cinematic heritage, the case for presenting Brief Encounter as a dramatisation is set out persuasively.

Usherettes presiding over the theatre break into evocative, a capella songs of the period; illicit lovers Alec and Laura rush off into the audience to catch trains; station cafe staff break from their gossiping to offer buns to those in the front row. You didn’t get this in the cinema, it infers persistently.

This is a production for the 21st century and to that end, Rice employs a variety of media to illustrate her story.

Film is used judiciously to allow Alec to step from Laura’s embrace and board a projected train, which steams away into the night, or to show Laura torn between a live, hot-blooded Alec, declaring his love and her husband calling for her at home, flat and on-screen in black and white.

The bickering, wheedling children Laura guiltily returns to after meeting Alec are beautifully portrayed through life-size puppets.

Although perfectly executed, this highly illustrative visual style can seem overworked. The motif of waves crashing as the lovers are consumed by their passion is heavy- handed, as is Laura physically swinging from a chandelier in one giddy scene. It looks wonderful, but it is hard not to draw comparisons with the sparse, underplayed elegance of the film and find the latter preferable.

For the main Kneehigh’s characteristic use of an ensemble cast works well. There are a few star turns – Beverly Rudd’s lovesick waitress Beryl, whose rendition of Mad About The Boy is surprisingly moving, and Joseph Alessi as Albert but it is a commendable group effort.

However, this also works against the production at times. The emphasis on other relationships provides an interesting backdrop to the main love affair but doesn’t seem entirely necessary.

At heart, this is a play about two people. The insistence on adding detail and asides makes the encounter, while charming, a less brief and intense affair than it should be.