The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
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Theatre as art and artifice
A kaleidoscope of human emotions offered by Andrew Scott’s virtuoso performance as multiple characters gets the thumbs up from MARY CONWAY
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JOHN GREEN explores the argument that psychiatry needs to move away from the idea of just seeing and treating the individual
SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a polemic against “cleanfluencers” and considers radical alternatives to current inequalities of housework
RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
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DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models
Vanya
Duke of York’s Theatre
IT SOUNDS preposterous: the great Chekhov masterpiece Uncle Vanya reduced to a one-man show. But yes, this is the latest sensation to hit the West End in a version co-created by adaptor Simon Stephens, director Sam Yates and actor and erstwhile “hot priest” from Fleabag Andrew Scott.
As if not daring enough that Scott plays all the parts, this highly potent version also abandons its Russian setting, renames its characters and tentatively modernises, turning the demon professor into a self-regarding film-maker and the samovar into a teapot.
Irish accents proliferate and the vast distances of Russia are minimalised to fit the British Isles by suggesting that those made potentially homeless in the play decamp to the Isle of Man.
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