Surprisingly this is the first time I've seen a Chekhov play performed 'live' - I've read a lot of them and seen quite a few on TV but never live and to a certain level I'm 'right familiar with Chekhov' just like the heroine of Educating Rita. Maybe there's a feeling that Chekhov is too hard or irrelevant for today, I'm not sure, but when I saw our local theatre were producing The Seagull, I thought it was time to take the plunge. A little conferring with my ex-drama student elder daughter, confirmed my suspicion that The Seagull was one of those Chekhov plays about thwarted ambition, set in the countryside and in which everyone desperately wants to go to Moscow - this is a bit of a family standing joke, so I nearly burst out laughing when one of the characters started talking about needing to go to Moscow!
Anyway, it turned out to be a very enjoyable evening. The cast were great - and included one of our favourite 'locals' John Elkington who we last saw in
Of Mice and Men at Nottingham Playhouse. My only quibble would actually have been with Chekhov himself - I would have ended the play with the dramatic off-stage gunshot, but then I'm not a famous Russian playwright.
This production of The Seagull was a co-production between Headlong Theatre, The Nuffield, Southampton and Derby Theatre.
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