Top Chekhov adaptation brings out the best in Kristin Scott Thomas & Stephen Mangan

Harold Pinter Theatre

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Kristin Scott Thomas in The Cherry Orchard. Photo: Johan Persson

Every production of Chekhov‘s The Cherry Orchard is different: like life, it’s so open to interpretation. Even so, there’s always a sense of doom, and there’s always a comical bubble of illusions shielding those who are looking doom in the face. So what makes this production at the Harold Pinter Theatre special?

This is a particularly star studded production, not only Kristin Scott Thomas and Stephen Mangan starring, but top playwright Conor McPherson providing a re-imagining and Ian Rickson, a highly successful interpreter of Chekhov, directing. It’s also blessed with a cast of the highest quality.

The language provided by McPherson is blunt and speaks to a modern audience. Chloe Lamford’s decaying, damp looking set and Sussie Juhlin-Wallen’s costumes which mix period and modern elements give the production a sense of time passing. The mixed bunch of characters are either living in the past or seeking to preserve it.

The theme of resistance to change is timeless. The specific change in this case is the old Russian hierarchy crumbling in the face of the rising middle class.

Luba Ranevskaya, played magnificently by Kristin Scott Thomas, is the matriarch of a grand house and estate, the destitute successor to its previously rich and powerful owners.

The focus point of the land is a cherry orchard. It’s a cute touch for the characters to look out on the audience when referring to the orchard. We are, it seems, both the past condemned to perish and the future they will never see.

So many of the characters are lost in their illusions, unable to articulate their thoughts or even finish sentences in the face of the reality before them. Kristin Scott Thomas’ character is like a rudderless ship, fiddling with her hair, offering rictus smiles, distractedly hugging people in a half hearted cure their sadness, looking vacantly as if seeing the past or a different reality, sentences trailing off. Luba continues to behave like the lady of the manor, giving away money she doesn’t have while the debts pile up. Always looking to take flight to Paris to join her unfaithful lover, preferring to keep the memory of its past rather than grapple with modern day challenges of an estate facing bankruptcy.

An impressive cast

Stephen Mangan in The Cherry Orchard.Photo: Johan Persson

Through the next two and half hours, the people around her interact, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in conflict, fast, slow, sniping, soothing, revealing more and more of their characters, their illusions and their painful vulnerabilities.

Luba’s brother Leo is so inflated in his self importance, but actually a total scrounger, and so unpleasant. He could be a template for a certain ex-royal. Always reassuring himself and those around him that something will turn up. Peter Wight gives him just the right mix of nasty and pathetic.
Jeff Rawle brings more pathos to Boris, an impoverished landowner, smiling but always trying to borrow money.

Jack Riddiford is the perpetual student Petyo, even at 30 years old, still talking of graduation. He speaks of revolution but needs the aristocracy to revolt against.

Some female characters look to feckless men for salvation – their love repeatedly unreciprocated. Anastasia Martin is Luba’s unstable daughter. Vinette Robinson gives a powerful performance as the tightlaced adopted daughter Varya, trying to manage the estate finances while wishing she could be a nun. Megan Cusack is the servant Dunyasha taking advantage of the breakdown of the class system to dress up and flirt with attractive men.

Saddest and funniest of all, Karl Johnson is Firs, the old retainer, literally living in the past thanks to dementia but coming up with golden lines like ‘you’re wearing the wrong trousers’. Karl Johnson is an actor I’ve seen many times on stage and he never disappoints.

Only Yermi Lopakhin, played by Stephen Mangan , looks positively to the future. He’s part of a new generation of a self made rich men. Being from peasant stock and well aware of his inferiority, ‘sorry’ is his most used word, a wide-eyed nervous laugh is never far away. He has been in love with Luba since childhood but he can see that the estate must be commercialised to survive, which means the cherry orchard must go. His illusion is that saving the estate will win over Luba. His belief in money as the way to his ideal is as deluded as the head in the sand attitude of those around him. And he is blind to the possibility of happiness with Varya. Stephen Mangan is wonderful in this role, giving a light comic vulnerability to a character that can seem unpleasantly crowing.

This production of The Cherry Orchard is a masterful re-imagining from Conor McPherson that is brought to life by a perfect cast and Ian Rickson’s inspired direction.

The Cherry Orchard can be seen at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 9 January 2026. Buy tickets from the theatre haroldpintertheatre.co.uk

Paul was given a review ticket by the producer

Read a roundup of other critics’ reviews here

Watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

Avengers star Hayley Atwell is forceful co-star with Tom Burke

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Production photo of hayley at well in Rosmersholm at Duke Of York's theatre in London May 2019 — Hayley Atwell in Rosmersholm. Photo: Johan Persson

Rosmersholm is about wanting to pursue passion and change but being held back by the past – the political system, religion, inhertitance.

At the beginning, everything is covered in dustsheets in this stately home- Rosmersholm. The walls show signs of flood damage at the lower levels. It’s murky. Until Hayley Atwell playing Rebecca West starts pulling the sheets off and letting the light in.

It’s a year since Rosmer’s wife committed suicide in the lake and clogged up the millwheel, thus causing a flood.

Production shot of Rosmersholm at the duke Of York's theatre in London — Photo: Johan Persson

Her death raised questions, the main one being why did she do it? Rosmer is weighed down by his past. Not only the recent tragic event of his wife’s death but his whole inheritance. The high walls of Rae Smith’s brilliant set are covered in paintings of his ancestors staring down. He is expected to keep the line going.

Production shot of Giles Terera in Rosmersholm at the Duke Of York's Theatre in London — Giles Terera in Rosmersholm. Photo: Johan Persson

We are on the eve of an election and people are looking for a lead from Rosmer. But his disillusionment with the political system, where everyone is in it for themselves is profound. He renounces his traditional party- the conservatives, whose representative is superbly conveyed by Giles Terera as the likeable but ruthless Kroll who views women and the working class with contempt. So it seems Rosmer should back the radicals but both sides take against him. Both own newspapers that lie about him. You see there are many modern parallels.

Production shot of tom Burke in Rosmersholm at Duke Of York's Theatre in London — Tom Burke in Rosmersholm. Photo: Johan Persson

Mildly spoken Tom Burke as Rosmer pefectly conveys the uncertainty that alternates with his passion for Rebecca.

Good as Mr Burke is, the evening belongs to Hayley Atwell as Rebecca. She is the force of change and she is a force on the stage. Her performance is bravura but always believable. However even Rebecca is dragged down by the past.

This is an excellent cast. Lucy Briers is the housekeeper, representing the dour working class, still mired in superstition and believing what she reads in the papers. Jake Fairbrother is the radical newspaper editor, previously driven out of the town by holier-than-thou outrage, led by Rosmer, who is now the victim of the same high mindedness himself. Peter Wight is the faded leftwing revolutionary who is violently rejected by the workers he wishes to empower.

Nothing in Ibsen is straightforward and, as in his earlier An Enemy Of The People and The Wild Duck, naively believing that all you need is truth is a sure recipe for disaster.

Ultimately the politics gives way to the personal. Hope and heartbreak mark the love between John Rosmer and Rebecca West and, as this is Ibsen, a happy ending never seems on the cards. There are many questions and no easy answers in this masterpiece but there is much to thrill to as emotions once constrained begin to burst free.

Ibsen is famous for his revolutionary realism and Ian Rickson’s production and Duncan MacMillan’s adaptation triumph in making the characters in this 130 year old play seem totally real.

Also realistic are the set design by Rae Smith and lighting by Neil Austin which emphasise the claustrophobic setting and changing moods. Rae Smith‘s final contribution (which I won’t reveal), as the curtain metaphorically is about to come down, is a coup de théâtre that underlines what has happened and gives final proof of how much the design is another actor in this terrific production.

Finally a quick word of praise for producer Sonia Friedman. Again she has brought a play to the West End that might have been expected to stay in the domain of subsidised venues and, although she has used star names from film and TV, the stars are stage actors of the highest calibre. Commercial producers often look for safe, audience pleasers but Ms Friedman stretches and challenges her audience and, on this occasion, has rewarded them with an evening of extraordinary theatre.
Click here to watch the review on YouTube

SPOILER ALERT! This is a complaint about the publicity material. Rosmersholm is one of Ibsen’s least produced plays (although this may change after this powerful production), so audiences are unlikely to know how it ends. However, having seen the picture on the posters and adverts, they are likely to have a good idea as the play progresses.