UNCLE VANYA St James Theatre

This is a version of Chekhov’s play by Anya Reiss, who, in a Q&A published in the programme (which I unfortunately read just before the play started), admits that the plays of Chekhov never grabbed her when she was a youngster and she never understood how some people thought they were masterpieces. It wasn’t until she was invited to adapt and make them modern, that she realised “how much more there was to them.” But why adapt them? Why not stage the play Chekhov wrote? Why bother to take it out of the 19th century and set it in modern England where it does not make sense? It is modern enough without her intervention and it doesn’t need laptops; and it certainly doesn’t need an ugly corrugated set. John Hannah and Joe Dixon are so good as Vanya and Astrov that I wished they were acting Chekhov.