Theatre review: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Another example of American and British tastes often differing, Christopher Durang's uneven comedy-drama Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike won a Best Play Tony in 2012, but didn't make it to the UK until this 2019 Theatre Royal Bath production, which was further delayed in transferring to London by... the usual*. As the title suggests, Durang throws together characters and situations from Chekhov in different configurations, with modern-day rural Pennsylvania standing in for turn-of-the-last-century remote Russia. Here three siblings in their fifties grew up, and two of them still live: Vanya (Michael Maloney) and his adopted sister Sonia (Rebecca Lacey) looked after their elderly parents, and following their deaths have stayed there, with no jobs and little to do with their time. They're supported by sister Masha (Janie Dee,) who sees herself as a classical actress but has made her fortune in a slasher movie franchise.

Theatre review: The Merry Wives of Windsor(RSC / RST & Barbican)

I'd been fully expecting the RSC to announce that Antony Sher would return to the role of Sir John Falstaff "by" "popular" "demand" when the complete works got round to The Merry Wives of Windsor, but apparently King Lear marked the First Lady's retirement from Shakespeare so instead it's another RSC stalwart who gets a crack at one of the most popular characters, albeit in his least popular appearance. David Troughton plays Falstaff in a play rumoured, somewhat dubiously, to have been commissioned by Elizabeth I herself when she wanted to see more of the breakout star of the Henry IV plays. It's this legend Fiona Laird's production takes as its starting-point, with a Terry Gilliam-style animation of the Queen demanding Shakespeare get out of bed and write her a spin-off in two weeks (a timescale that, let's face it, isn't rendered entirely implausible by much of what follows.)