Essential Chekhov

Uncle Vanya comes into the Vaudeville at an artful slouch. Lindsay Posner’s take on Chekhov’s story of bickering Russian sophisticates has an unusual visual style. In Britain we’re used to seeing Chekhov set in some fading Palladian mansion just outside Haslemere or Bath. Designer Christopher Oram has rummaged through the archives and discovered some hideously authentic stylings. He offers us a gloomy Siberian dacha, all cobwebby nooks and stacked timbers painted cowpat brown and carved with ornamental Asiatic doodles. This hulking coffin of a house emphasises the isolation and pinched misery of the play.

The starry cast shine with fitful brilliance. Dr Astrov is played by Sam West, a good-looking blank, whose acting style hovers between heavily sedated and full-on Lazarus. But he’s on sprightly form here and he captures the romance, the quirkiness and the sexual opportunism of the cranky doctor superbly. (Memo to make-up team: Astrov twice mentions his big silly moustache so give him a big silly moustache, not a neatly tonsured goatee.