ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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Pinpointing Seagull’s universality
MARY CONWAY recommends, with minor reservations, an innovative staging of the Chekhov classic
SINGLE CONCERN: Something about the continuously static state of the actors denies the fluidity of life
[Marc Brenner]
Death comes for Liberals, entitled murder, Vatican hit squads, and fraternising with the Blitz killer
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The Seagull
Harold Pinter Theatre
DIRECTOR Jamie Lloyd is famed for attracting new and diverse audiences to the theatre. And how better to do this than by casting a star of the small screen (Emilia Clarke) in a play written by a theatrical giant (Anton Chekhov), then reworking it for a modern audience through a script by a young, much-celebrated playwright (Anya Reiss)?
If the first night audience of this bold but skeletal West End showpiece is anything to go by – packed as it is with celebrities and eager fans – success is in the bag.
Messing with the work of Chekhov can be perilous, provoking traditionalists to expressions of untold fury. The original Seagull, after all, is adored by the world at large, its greatest productions feasting not only on the profundity of the text and the human truth of the characters, but on the splendour of the rural setting and the originality of the performance style.
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