What can so easily become a pervasive tone of melancholy in Chekhov's last and greatest play is kept in check in English Touring Theatre's new production, in part through the judicious casting of Prunella Scales in its central role, writes Chris Gray.

While it would be impudent and inaccurate to label so versatile a performer 'a comedy actress', it is undeniably the case that she is best known as a laughter-maker, certainly in her television appearances.

Her very presence in the cast reminds us that Chekhov intended this to be his funniest play - "a light comedy, almost a farce", he called it, though we are forced to conclude, as ever, that the play he wrote hardly fits the description. For director Stephen Unwin it is "nothing less than the greatest dramatic achievement of the 20th century", a view which suggests he might perhaps have taken a reverential, even ponderous, approach to the work. On the contrary, his is a straightforward, well-paced and beautifully spoken production, whose only oddity, I thought, was in denying the audience any glimpse of the famous orchard and its cherries. It its depiction of the decline and disposal of a once fine estate, the play reflects the wider frictions in society which were set to tear Russia apart barely a decade after its 1904 premiere. At its centre, seemingly oblivious to the fast-changing world around her, is the penniless landowner Lyubov Ranevskaya (Ms Scales) who returns from living in Paris to find that her orchard must be sold to meet her debts. She is no more able to face up to the implications of this than to cope with the emotional traumas of the rich gallery of friends, family and retainers which surrounds her. Her comical self-absorption is evident in her first greeting to the 87-year-old servant Firs (the excellent Frank Middlemass): "I am so glad I found you still alive." His deafness prevents a suitable response - not that one would have been made by a man so deferential to his 'superiors'. How different from the attitude of the younger servants, the strutting, go-getting Yasha (Simon Scardifield) and the flirtatious Dunyasha (Clare Calbraith), both of whom recognise the advantages a pretty face can buy.

Their easy sexuality contrasts tellingly with relationship between Ranevskaya's adopted daughter Varya (Sarah Malin) and the rich former peasant Lopakhin (Michael Feast) who, while feeling no qualms about buying up the estate, cannot bring himself to lay claim to the hand of its long-time guardian. In a production characterised by fine acting, there is outstanding work from Michael Cronin as the hard-up neighbour whose efforts to scrounge cash provide a neat running gag, John Quentin as Ranevskaya's batty brother, Amelda Brown as the oddball magician governess to her daughter Anya (Octavia Walters) and Robert Hands as the perpetual student Trofimov who gives voice to the hope - as one character always does in Chekhov's plays - that today's problems will soon be forgotten in humanity's bright new future.

*Taken from The Oxford Times Weekend section, May 5