Ivan Turgenev predates Chekhov by a few decades but his work certainly shows him as a likely influence on the more celebrated playwright's world of terminally disappointed upper middle classes turning ennui into their whole personality - or at least Brian Friel's adaptation of
A Month in the Country suggests as much. Lyndsey Turner's production at the Donald and Margot Warehouse moves the action from sitting rooms to a greenhouse, which in Lesley Travers' design rises to reveal the household of Natalya (Sophie Okonedo) and her husband Arkady (Thomas Arnold.) The couple have a young son as well as a 17-year-old ward, Vera (Rachelle Diedericks,) and after a series of stuffy old men they have decided to employ a 24-year-old recent graduate from a lower-class background as their latest tutor.
