AMERICAN as spoken is English but maybe not as we know it… and that’s probably its underlying attraction.

Truman Capote was a literary colossus, perhaps best known for his murder docudrama In Cold Blood, a chilling tale of lonely prairies and murderous drifters.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s couldn’t be more different. But this adaptation of his 1958 short story displays exactly the same richness of language, the hallmark of a man who wasn’t afraid to turn nouns into adjectives and back again. And that’s very American indeed.

Georgia May Foote sparkles as goodtime girl Holly Golightly, which is no mean feat, bearing in mind she’s following in Audrey Hepburn’s dainty footsteps.

Foote makes the character her very own, effortlessly absorbing all the nuances of post-war New York, an insomniac city in which endlessly patient bartenders must listen to hard-luck stories set to a Duke Ellington soundtrack.

Yes sir, you can almost smell the bagels, burgers and bourbon whiskey on every street bum’s breath.

Our narrator is Fred (Matt Barber) a sexually ambiguous struggling writer who chronicles the Golightly gadfly’s life. This consists mainly of a perpetual rotation of society parties and their attendant hangovers, punctuated by tears and tantrums.

Barber’s character provides the glue that holds the whole shebang together, helping to make sense of what is basically a futile existence.

Meanwhile, bartender Joe Bell (Victor McGuire) is in a glass of his own, neatly framing this urban parable as he offers snippets of wisdom to the human flotsam and jetsam washed up in his drinking joint.

This is brilliant stage work that does Capote’s prose proud, a very British production that deftly translates the Americanese into a language that we can all understand.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s runs until Saturday (October 15) and is not to be missed.

John Phillpott