The Cherry Orchard  
Theatre Royal Windsor  

USING much the same cast that put across a rather confused Hamlet at this venue during the summer, director Sean Mathias has come up with a considerably more satisfactory Cherry Orchard, thanks in part to the addition of two stage heavyweights, Francesca Annis and Martin Shaw.  

Annis is enthralling as the fragile, flighty aristocrat Ranyevskaya — exasperatingly unwilling to do anything about her fate as the family estate is sold from underneath her, yet so sweet and loveable that it becomes impossible to condemn her for too long.  

Partly this is because Annis also imparts Ranyevskaya with such subtle strength that we come to see the old lady as a great survivor, better adjusted to the oncoming rush of change than many of the self-deceiving procrastinators who surround her.  

Shaw, as the self-confident serf’s grandson who eventually buys Ranyevskaya’s property, does a similarly ameliorating job with his own part.  

Though he gives Lopakhin a hard, practical patina, he wisely infuses his character with uncertainties and prevarications of his own, and never plays the role with anything approaching a villainous air.   

Everyone else can do little more than float gamely around these two strong portrayals, though Robert Daws is notably entertaining as Pishchik, bursting red with high living, high spirits and high blood pressure, while Ian McKellan, returning after Hamlet to a role much nearer his actual age, is responsible for many of the most amusing moments as Firs, the befuddled old manservant.  

On a bright, whitewashed set by Lee Newby that successfully conveys the airiness (and ghostliness) of the old house and its doomed surroundings, Mathias has, this time, done well by an old classic.

Played nearer to comedy than tragedy, it’s a wistful take on Chekhov’s final play; one that suggests we are better off trying to make the best of new dawns rather than blindly resisting them.

Runs until 13 November: theatreroyalwindsor.co.uk.