AN AWARD-WINNING play is selling out theatres on a national tour, but it won’t be playing in the town where the drama is mostly set – Swindon.

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time is based on the novel by Mark Haddon and tells the story of a teenage boy, Christopher, who has an asperger’s-like condition.

He lives in Swindon with his father and becomes obsessed with a neighbour’s dead dog, and embarks on his own investigation into how and why it died.

The book was published to great acclaim in 2003 and in 2012 was adapted for the stage, with a National Theatre production still running in the West End. In 2013 the play won seven Olivier awards.

It is now playing simultaneously at the Gielgud Theatre in London and on Broadway, it won six Tony awards just last month, and a national tour began in December and runs until November, playing at 31 theatres around the country – but not Swindon.

The reason is the size of our theatre, the Wyvern, which can’t accommodate the production’s elaborate set.

“We would have loved to have toured to Swindon, but there isn’t a big enough theatre,” said a spokeswoman for the National Theatre.

“We want Swindon people to see the play and it is playing nearby, there are dates in Oxford and Bristol.”

The play, adapted by Simon Stephens, has been given the seal of approval by Mark Haddon.

He said: “When I wrote Curious Incident I was absolutely convinced that it couldn’t be adapted for film or stage.

“The novel is one person’s very insulated and sometimes profoundly mistaken view of the world. We’re stuck inside inside Christopher’s head from cover to cover. We see the world the way he sees the world.

“Theatre is radically third person. You can infer what people are thinking but you can do so only from what they say and what they do.

“I simply couldn’t imagine how Christopher’s story could be told with any integrity in this way. Simon’s genius was to recognize that I was completely and utterly wrong.”

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time runs at the New Theatre in Oxford from July 14-18 and at the Bristol Hippodrome from August 4 to 8.

For tickets visit atgtickets.com/venues/new-theatre-oxford and atgtickets.com/venues/bristol-hippodrome.