Chekhov

Scherzinger is superb but why’s the set so dark and ugly? Sunset Boulevard, at the Savoy Theatre, reviewed

21 October 2023 9:00 am

Sunset Boulevard is a re-telling of the Oedipus story set in the cut-throat world of Hollywood. Pick a side in…

A cherry orchard, three sisters and a summer romance: Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett, reviewed

29 July 2023 9:00 am

Alex Clark enjoys a poignant story centring on a cherry orchard, three sisters and their mother’s past love affair

Helpless human puppets: Liberation Day, by George Saunders, reviewed

29 October 2022 9:00 am

George Saunders’s handbook published last year, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, gave masterclasses on seven short stories…

Hytner hits the bull's eye: The Southbury Child, at the Bridge Theatre, reviewed

16 July 2022 9:00 am

The Southbury Child is a comedy drama set in east Devon featuring a distressed vicar, Fr David, with a complex…

Satire misfires: Our Country Friends, by Gary Shteyngart, reviewed

20 November 2021 9:00 am

It is, as you’ve possibly noticed, a tricky time for old-school American liberals, now caught between increasingly extreme versions of…

Keeping yourself angry, the Hare way: We Travelled, by David Hare, reviewed

14 August 2021 9:00 am

A character in David Hare’s Skylight claims she has at last found contentment by no longer opening newspapers or watching…

This fabulous play is like a Chekhov classic: The One Day in the Year reviewed

20 February 2021 9:00 am

The One Day In the Year is an Australian drama about the annual commemoration of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.…

The art of the short story: what we can learn from the Russians

23 January 2021 9:00 am

Viv Groskop takes a masterclass in the art of the short story

This crisis could be the catalyst for a golden age of British theatre

13 June 2020 9:00 am

The coronavirus crisis offers theatre a golden opportunity to break free of the structures that have held it back for years, says William Cook

Short stories to enjoy in lockdown

2 May 2020 9:00 am

In these circumstances there’s a temptation to reach for the longest novel imaginable. If you’re not going to read Proust…

Strong performances in a slightly wonky production: Uncle Vanya reviewed

1 February 2020 9:00 am

Uncle Vanya opens with a puzzle. Is the action set in the early 20th century or right now? The furnishings…

The only known colour photograph of Tolstoy — taken at Yasnaya Polyana in 1908 by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky

Searching in vain for the ‘soul’ of modern Russia

3 August 2019 9:00 am

It would be hard to have better travel-writer credentials than Sara Wheeler. Here the author of The Magnetic North and…

One of the great whodunnits: Old Vic’s All My Sons reviewed

4 May 2019 9:00 am

It starts on a beautiful summer’s morning in the suburbs of America. A prosperous middle-aged dad is chatting with his…

A horror show that appeals to the intellect but not the gut: The Tell-Tale Heart reviewed

5 January 2019 9:00 am

The Tell-Tale Heart is based on a teeny-weeny short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The full text appears in the…

Love is blind, but lust is not; William Boyd’s 15th novel reviewed

6 October 2018 9:00 am

William Boyd’s 15th novel begins well enough. In 1894 Edinburgh, a 24-year-old piano tuner is promoted to the Paris branch…

If you wanted to cast someone as Spooner, the literary vagrant in Pinter’s No Man’s Land, you’d struggle to find a closer match: director Michael Boyd

The former head of the RSC finds cause for optimism in the Arts Council cuts

10 March 2018 9:00 am

He looks like an absent-minded watchmaker, or a homeless chess champion, or a stray physics genius trying to find his…

Family planning

28 October 2017 9:00 am

Beginning starts at the end. A Crouch End party has just finished and the sitting room is a waste tip…

I came out feeling euphoric and disorientated: Young Vic’s Blue/Orange reviewed

28 May 2016 9:00 am

Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall enjoys the dubious status of a modern classic. A black mental-health patient, Christopher, is about to…

Uncle Vanya, The Almeida

Kit-car Chekhov: Uncle Vanya at the Almeida reviewed

27 February 2016 9:00 am

Director Robert Icke has this to say of Chekhov’s greatest masterpiece: ‘Let the electricity of now flow into the old…

Cherrelle Skeete as Katya and Royce Pierreson at Belyaev in ‘Three Days in the Country’

Feels like Chekhov scripted by a Chekhov app: Three Days in the Country at the Lyttleton reviewed

8 August 2015 9:00 am

Chekhov so dominates 19th-century Russian drama that Turgenev doesn’t get much of a look-in. His best known play, A Month…

The Seagull needs a roof to stop Chekhov's subtleties flying off

4 July 2015 9:00 am

A new Seagull lands in Regent’s Park. Director Matthew Dunster has lured Chekhov’s classic into a leafy corner of north…