A Month in the Country – Donmar Warehouse, London

Writer: Brian Friel, after Ivan Turgenev

Director: Lyndsey Turner

Lyndsey Turner’s production of Turgenev’s comedy, A Month in the Country, has real charm. This is partly due to Brian Friel’s light-footed translation, which leans into the text’s jokes and puns. And partly it’s the casting which exaggerates the gap between youth and age which Turgenev makes so much of. In addition, it’s visually ravishing, everything bathed in golden summer light. A cage of shivering leaves lifts and falls to allow for swift scene changes, its metaphoric implications briefly suggested when Natalya’s face is initially glimpsed peering out through the greenery. But this is not Chekhov: Natalya is no tragic heroine, and Turner directs this comedy with a light touch.

Sophie Okonedo is a marvellously mercurial Natalya. Arkady, her husband, may be middle-aged, but Thomas Arnold shows him forever in the grip of boyish enthusiasms, bounding in, eyes shining, to describe his plans for a new sluice gate or the arrival of innovative farm equipment. Turgenev’s gentle irony is that what attracts Natalya to the new tutor, Alexsey, is that same boyishness. Patrick Gibson gives a lovely performance as the glowing young man, as does Rachelle Diedericks as Natalya’s 17-year-old ward, Vera, the pair constantly laughing and teasing one another.

It’s not enough for Natalya, however, to have a devoted admirer in Michel. Alistair Petrie is a model of passionate restraint, long since resigned to playing second fiddle. Natalya tolerates Michel, but has been boulversé by the arrival of Alexsey. Turgenev gives her a couple of soliloquies – a rather awkward way of suggesting her inner life – which allow her to give voice to her ‘demented’ feelings for him and her sudden, vengeful plan to marry off Vera to an elderly neighbour. Natalya is a tricky part to play, the speed of these transitions and the slightness of the writing not allowing for psychological depth. Okonedo’s expressively mobile face, however, allows us to follow her every thought.

Each character has a take on love. Elderly rogue, Herr Schaaf, in a great turn by Mark Hadfield, persistently chases young women while wilfully misusing language. ‘With Lizaverta Bogdanovna ever again I refuse to couple!’ he announces, angry at his card-playing partner’s ineptitude. Daniel Rigby relishes the broadly comic role of the doctor, a man with an eye for the main chance and teller of terrible jokes. Yet somehow he makes his proposal to Lizaveta (Amanda Wilkin) touching. Meanwhile the ebullient servants, Katya (Jessica Brindle) and Matvey (Jonathan Livingstone) move at comic speed from friction to flirtation.

Michael Hodgson is marvellous as unwelcome suitor Afanasy Bolshintsov. A bachelor and a virgin in scruffy shoes and half-mast trousers, Bolshintsov has become possessed by the idea of marrying Vera. Hodgson invests him with all the foolishness the part requires, yet when he stands alone at the end of the play clutching wilted flowers, his softly gleaming eyes have a convincing poignancy.

It is in moments like these – another is when Susan Brown as Anna, Arkady’s dignified mother, reveals her surprising past- that A Month in the Country gives a glimpse of depth which Turgenev’s play otherwise lacks. Brian Friel argued that its categorisation as a comedy was restrictive, and Lyndsey Turner’s direction allows for just the right amount of unsettling irony in what is otherwise a comic farce.

Runs until 3 October 2026