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The Seagull

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Five stars 

 

Everybody’s a drama queen in Anton Chekhov’s end of the nineteenth century meditation on the emotional merry-go-round of a bunch of self-absorbed theatrical types all in love with the wrong person. Ageing actress Arkadina is having an absolutely fabulous time as a writer’s moll to literary magpie Trigorin, for whom everything and everyone is material for his stories. Arkadina may still think of herself as a leading lady, but it is her try-too-hard playwright son Konstantin who is centre stage at the start as he tries to impress would-be actress Nina by casting her in his new experimental opus. 

 

Nina, alas, only wants to be famous. While she becomes starstruck with Trigorin in the hope that some of his charisma will rub off on her, Konstantin’s angry young man routine catches the attention of sulky goth in waiting Masha. Masha in turn is doted on with puppy dog devotion by schoolteacher Medvendenko. 

 

All this is brought to refreshingly bright life in James Brining’s production – his first as the Lyceum’s recently appointed artistic director – with a breezy translation by Mike Poulton that stays true to the play’s sense of serious fun without ever losing its yearning heart. The cast of eleven move through the seasons on Colin Richmond and Anna Kelsey’s set, which, like Madeleine Boyd’s costumes, moves from autumnal greens and browns through to summer whites as the temperature blows hot and cold under Lizzie Powell’s lighting

 

The tone is set from the opening sparring between Tallulah Greive’s Masha and Michael Dylan as Medvendenko, before Lorn Macdonald’s Konstantin attempts to push boundaries at every level. Harmony Rose-Bremner’s Nina is a hungry wannabe who loses herself to Dyfan Dwyfor’s dismissive Trigorin. At the heart of all this, Caroline Quentin brings humanity and wit to Arkadina, whose grand dame status crumbles into desperation in her more private moments with Trigoran. Quentin brings a heartbreaking sense of vulnerability to these scenes that gets behind the melodramatic mask.

 

With able support from the likes of Forbes Masson as Dr. Dorn and John Bett as Arkadina’s brother Sorin, both play and production suggests that even the finest minds are a fragile and sometimes self-destructive accident waiting to happen in a world itself in the midst of slow burning collapse. It is heartening to see such a big cast take on a major classic play that shows off its large ensemble cast at full strength in a way that bodes well for the future of Brining’s tenure.


The Herald, October 16th 2025

 

ends

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