Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Orchard blossoms with novel take
Chekhov classic is rejuvenated by being played nearer to comedy than tragedy, writes PETER MASON
Annis
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
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.
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PETER MASON is moved by a striking production of Noel Streatfeild’s enduringly popular children’s book
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PETER MASON shivers in the under-heated ecclesiastical setting of a concert featuring five 19th-century French composers
