Despite the grim subject matter dealt with in The Seagull, Anton Chekhov still insisted it was a comedy. Perhaps one should not be entirely surprised, then — though it is unusual — to find the action punctuated by laughter from the audience, as it was last week in the production by student company Illyria Productions at the Oxford Playhouse.

In part this was a consequence, I think, of some of the exhuberant young onlookers deriving amusement from seeing their mates made up to play characters many decades older than themselves. This applied in particular to Matt Gavan, dispensing grumpy observations from a wheelchair in the part of the estate owner, Sorin. But there was, too, a lightness of touch in director Chloe Wicks’s approach to the play which brought many shafts of light amid the gloom.

The excellent translation by Michael Frayn helped in this respect, though I continue to find fault with his closing line: “He has shot himself” — as Dr Dorn (Michael Kalisch) tells Trigorin (Alfred Enoch, pictured). This lacks the pleasing finality of the traditional: “Konstantin Gavrilovich has shot himself.”

The young writer’s descent towards suicide was well-charted in this production, with Henry Faber supplying an affecting picture of a headstrong idealist who is delivered a double defeat by an older rival. Not only does he lose out to Trigorin in the matter of acclaim for his writing, but he suffers, too, from seeing the older man make off with his beloved Nina (Bella Hammond).

Trigorin’s involvement with her, in fact, turns out to be merely a temporary dalliance before he returns to the arms of Konstantin’s dominating actress mother, Arkadina. This selfish and highly theatrical woman was splendidly portrayed by Laura Nakhla in what was, in almost all respects, a fine, good-looking production (designers Anna Lewis and Rachel Beaconsfield Press).