Reasons to See The Cherry Orchard at the Harold Pinter Theatre
Posted on
It reunites director **Ian Rickson** and **Kristin Scott Thomas**, who worked together on a legendary revival of *The Seagull* at the Royal Court almost 20 years ago with a cast which included **Carey Mulligan** and **Mackenzie Crook**. **Scott Thomas**—who plays MI5 spy boss Diana Taverner in the hit TV series *Slow Horses*—bagged an Olivier for her role. She is probably due another one, and playing Lyubov Ranevskaya, the feckless landowner who returns to her family estates which are facing ruin, could be the role to bag it for her. **Rickson** also scored a hit with *Uncle Vanya*, which opened in the West End in 2020, a run cut short by the pandemic.
This [*Cherry Orchard*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/the-cherry-orchard-tickets) comes in a new version by **Connor McPherson**—the most Chekhovian of Irish writers, who also adapted **Rickson**’s *Vanya.* *The Cherry Orchard* is a play haunted by ghosts, most notably that of a dead child, and **McPherson**, in plays such as *The Weir, Dublin Carol* and *The Brightening Air,* has proved he knows more than a few things about the ghosts that haunt us.
This *Cherry Orchard* has a very fine cast too. The much-under-rated [**Stephen Mangan**](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/news/stephen-mangan-joins-cast-of-the-cherry-orchard-in-londons-west-end) moves pretty well straight from [*The Truth*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/the-truth-tickets) at the Apollo to playing Lopakhin, the self-made man, who, to Ranevskaya and her family’s horror, suggests that cutting down the much-loved cherry orchard and using the land for holiday homes might be a way forward. **Vinette Robinson**, such a genuinely surprising actor-- plays Varya, the family’s adopted daughter who is as powerless as the cherry orchard to escape her fate. The small but crucial role of Firs, the old family retainer, is played by that very fine veteran actor, **Karl Johnson**.
First performed in 1904 at the Moscow Art Theatre, it was **Chekhov**’s final play, and it had not come easily. While trying to write it, he despaired. "I am beginning to lose heart. It seems to me I have outlived my time as a writer, and that every sentence I write appears to serve no purpose.”
He was wrong. Premiering a year before the 1905 Russian Revolution, the precursor to the 1917 revolution which saw the overthrow of the Tsar, *The Cherry Orchard* was a remarkably prescient play about a world on the cusp of change, the clear-sightedness of those who will seize the opportunities that will occur and the blindness of those who think the order is fixed. But great revivals recognise that it is, as **Chekhov** himself declared, “a comedy, in places, even a farce".
The character of the student Trofimov—played here by rising star **Jack Riddiford,** recently seen in the West End in *Stereophonic*—is vocal about the need for social change and recognises how the orchard represents the inequalities of the whole of Russia. In the original production, a number of his speeches were cut by the Tsar’s censor.
**Lenin** claimed that it was the works of **Anton Chekhov** which were formative in turning him into a revolutionary.
Like the best plays, it survives because its depiction of a world in flux and crisis seems to speak to the ages. **Benedict Andrews**’ 2024 revival at the Donmar refused to treat it as a period piece, instead embracing it as a piece that speaks to the crisis brought about by the climate emergency, and **Vinay Patel**’s radical version at the Yard in 2022 was set on a spaceship travelling through time to find a habitable planet. I very much doubt that **Kristin Scott Thomas** is going to be finding herself on a spaceship.
The **Rickson/Kristin Scott Thomas** *Cherry Orchard* may be the only *Cherry Orchard* in town, but it is not the only *Cherry Orchard* in the country. **Helen Hunt** and **Kenneth Branagh** are now starring in a production opening at the RSC in Stratford upon Avon.
It has one of the most famous stage directions in theatre history. And it is a haunting one. “Suddenly a distant sound is heard as if from the sky, the sound of a string breaking, dying away, melancholic.” But you will have to see this production to find out how they do it and what it really signifies.
[*The Cherry Orchard*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/the-cherry-orchard-tickets) plays at the [Harold Pinter Theatre](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/venue/harold-pinter-theatre-london) from 3 October 2026 to 9 January 2027. Book your tickets today,