The Cherry Orchard review: Ian McKellen is funny and touching in a deeply eloquent production

The second in the Theatre Royal’s two-play season, Martin Sherman’s droll, deadpan interpretation of Chekhov’s final play is a brilliant showcase for McKellen’s talent

Francesca Annis (Ranyevskaya) and Ian McKellen (Firs) in ‘The Cherry Orchard' (Jack Merriman)

A wag might joke that with his extraordinary performance as Firs in Martin Sherman’s droll, deadpan and deeply eloquent version of Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, Sir Ian McKellen has finally learnt to act his age. The current two-play season at the Theatre Royal, Windsor began in July when McKellen took to stage thrillingly as Shakespeare’s most searching protagonist. Hamlet is 31; Sir Ian is 82. By dint of a great actor’s electric powers of self-belief, he made the age difference feel irrelevant.

Here he goes to the opposite end of the spectrum. Firs is 87 and semi-senile. He is the ancient retainer of the Ranesky family, whose retinue come back from a five-year chequered sojourn in Paris. Firs is beside himself with happiness. McKellen is bald and has a bushy, white Tolstoyan beard. He dodders around the stage; his infirm feet lurch in alarming tangents, as the feet of old folk sometimes do. He is in his element being able to serve the family again. But he is not remotely servile.

McKellen milks a lot of funny and touching moments out of this dichotomy. Consider the way he bides his time. When he totters towards the impecunious toffs with a tray of drinks, there is, semi-consciously, a subversive element to the way he keeps them waiting. Overlooked and dying, Firs is alone onstage in the play’s unforgettable waning moments.

Outside there’s the sound of an axe felling the first tree, in the process that signals the end of an era –The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov’s final masterpiece, premiered in Russia in 1904. I will not spoil the truly shattering close of this production by revealing the “twist” that is brought to it here.

In my view, this staging is even better than the Hamlet. It has been mounted by the same team – directed by Sean Mathias and designed by Lee Newby. In telling contrast to the toffs who are being ushered out of history, the production makes its impact because it thinks through everything afresh. In Lee Newby’s wonderfully expressive design, the floorboards look to have been sanded as if anticipating the forthcoming occupancy of Lopakhin (whose mixed feelings are brilliantly conveyed by Martin Shaw). Lopakhin’s father was a serf on this very estate. The father used to beat Lopakhin who bettered himself. The latter does not know whether to laugh hysterically or to break down in tears that his bid is successful at the climactic (offstage) auction. He has a painful tendresse for Ranevskaya, whom he remembers tending his wounds when he was a battered child.

Francesca Annis gives a performance of remarkable captivation. She shows you a grande dame of devouring emotional sincerity and subtly suggests that Ranevskaya has begun to believe in her own publicity as a flighty tragic figure. Sherman’s version wittily skewers the way in which Chekhov’s ensemble are vehemently at variance with each other. “What an old woman you are!” Lopakhin tells Gaev, Ranevskaya’s brother. In a cross-gendered performance as the latter, Jenny Seagrove signals how Gaev is often tactically deaf and self-preoccupied. “What?” “An old woman!” Lopakhin helpfully bawls back.

Newby’s design artfully encompasses, as a composite, all the play’s tricky shifts of location. This allows for some thrilling scenic glissades between indoors and outdoors – nursery, open field and grand ballroom. By the same token, the production comprehends the play.

At the age of 83, even great actors have to conserve their energies. But a West End rolling repertory of Hamlet and The Cherry Orchard would be rather divine. And what better reason for conserving those energies than to headline two theatrical masterpieces?

‘The Cherry Orchard’ is at Theatre Royal, Windsor, to 13 November 2021