A Month in the Country

(seen at the afternoon preview performance on 29th August 2026)

According to the programme, Tolstoy found Turgenev “sad.” Later, Chekhov helped pave the way for Turgenev’s plays to flourish.

By the end of this performance, the monkey finds a very clear difference between Chekhov and Turgenev.

While both set plays on lavish, decaying country estates, filled with lavish, decaying people, Chekhov’s characters swim in deep pools of depression before committing suicide.

Turgenev’s characters are considerably more rounded, some even ebullient. When they feel depressed, they go off and do something about it – which involves their staying alive.

It all makes for a far more interesting space in which to examine love in a confined social environment.

Director Lyndsey Turner and set designer Leslie Travers use thrillingly the thrust stage to bring us intimate lawn chats in a mixture of “Coronation Street” and “Fiddler on the Roof”.

Shrubbery growing on a glass frame, substituting for a curtain, rises and falls rather too slowly, but leaves a verge for amusing inter-scene byplay.

Tim Lutkin chooses direct bright light for our summer, while Max Pappenheim’s sound allows Angus MacRae’s score to drift like a breeze over the grass.

Brian Friel’s text has perhaps too many adjectives in the first scene, but after that delivers a simple and compelling tale with a stylish wit similar to “Dancing at Lughnasa” – which he wrote around the same time.

Just as with its sister play, he builds every character fully. The cast relish being able to deliver more than just introspective angst – a few getting to engage their own internal monologue voice in conversation. Effective, if a trifle odd.

We meet young matriarch Natalya Petrovna. Sophie Okonedo at her finest. She keeps an orderly home while being torn between eccentric engineer husband Arkady (Thomas Arnold) and dishy tutor Aleksey (Patrick Gibson).

Okonedo’s confusion is reasoned and delicious. Aleksey is just delicious to the ladies and fascinatingly unaware to watch.

Arnold amuses, yet gives Arkady the edge needed to run his estate. As his mother Anna (Susan Brown) notes, his father would be proud.

The ring expands with a remarkable performance from family doctor Ignaty (Daniel Rigby). Terrible jokes mask well-studied tangible pain. With uncanny timing he reduces the eternally polite Donmar audience to pantomime level groans with a single (even the Palladium would reject) pun.

Mark Hadfield’s Herr Schaff likewise produces memorable wordplay. The German’s terrible English leads to hair-raising malapropisms delivered unselfconsciously to great effect.

Michael Hodgson has pathos as shy farmer Afanasy, pursuing much younger Vera (Rachelle Diedericks). We experience shared longings from either end of the age spectrum, an unhappy opportunity to compare and contrast.

Jessica Brindle’s Katya and Jonathan Livingstone’s Matvey are more experienced in love and run a good subplot. Better matched in age, a fun counterpoint.

Alistair Petrie as family friend Michel and Amanda Wilkin’s Lizaveta the live-in companion rounds out this quality soap-opera romp.

The descending set scene changes are over-considered, and perhaps Friel and Turner could have underlined more heavily their conclusions, but the result is more than satisfying.

Both entertaining and empathetic, there is a rare energy the West End usually fails to extract, treating as it does any Russian classic with museum reverence.

Tim Sheader’s reign at the Donmar hits its stride as this theatrical month in the country flies by in minutes. Worth missing an episode of “Corrie” for.

The monkey advises checking performance times on your tickets and that performances are happening as scheduled, before travelling.

Venue Box Office & Current Prices

Every day at 10am, a number of tickets at all prices will be released for the corresponding day the following week, online www.donmarwarehouse.com.

Not available on press night, and may not be available on some other dates.