'Frayn’s version is shorter and more farcical than Hare’s: it omits, however, one or two characters and makes less of the financial pressures on the beleaguered estate-owner Anna Petrovna. What both versions share is a compelling antihero in Platonov: a village schoolmaster once thought of as “a second Byron” who has dwindled into a neurotic Don Juan with a ruinous attraction for women. Like many of Chekhov’s later characters, he is tragic on the inside and comic on the outside, and Frayn makes the most of the sight of him pathetically torn between the rival claims of competing lovers.'

'[Geoffrey Streatfeild] captures is the character’s mix of sardonic intellect and self-loathing as he contemplates a wasted life and the emotional wreckage he has created. Justine Mitchell invests Anna Petrovna with the right headstrong ardour, and there is fine support from Sophie Rundle as an amatory rival, Rebecca Humphries as Platonov’s neglected wife and Jo Herbert as a volatile chemistry student.'

'Rob Howell’s tree-dominated design reminds us that this is a play about people waking up to summer passions after winter hibernation and, with the aid of Peter Mumford’s lighting, twice memorably conjures up the effect of an onrushing train. Rather than choosing between the Frayn and Hare versions, we should count ourselves lucky that two living dramatists have excavated a work that shows Chekhov’s precocious mastery of comic despair.'

To read the full review click here to visit the Guardian online.

'A joyous production has emerged, with Frayn's version differing from Hare's in being more farcical, more compressed and more understanding of female sexuality.'

'Geoffrey Streatfeild brings great complexity to the role of Platonov as he fires up the women with his energy and quick thinking, while also weakly revelling in self-disgust.'

'...a pleasure to see.'

To read the full review click here to visit The Sunday Times online

'It's intriguing to re-encounter what Michael Frayn made of the same material in his classic 1984 adaptation which he called Wild Honey. Howard Davies – the greatest director in our era of the Russian and American repertoire – died while working on this beautifully cast and conceived revival.  It's been carried through to rich completion by Jonathan Kent'

'Platonov, the protagonist after whom most versions are named is a 27 year old provincial school teacher who is angry about everything, not least the corrupt society of land-grabbing merchants where an upstart entrepreneur can own more taverns than a peasant has kopecks and even more so about his failure to live up to his early idealism. The black joke is that he's a hapless, half-accidental Don Juan. No matter how badly he treats them, he's irresistible to women and, in addition to Sasha (Rebecca Humphries) his long-suffering wife, three are competing for him here – Anna Petrovna (superb Justine Mitchell), a widowed landowner; her stepdaughter Sofya (Sophie Rundle) who is actually on honeymoon with his best friend; and Jo Herbert as an embittered chemistry student.'

'Geoffrey Streatfeild is excellent as the electric eel in this barrel of provincial dead fish.'

'The tipsy comedy of errors in the forest and the inebriated farcical shenanigans on the railway track outside Platonov's house are choreographed with great aplomb. Kent directs with consummate tragicomic timing the final scene where our hero is cornered in the school room by a succession of the people he has deceived and there's vodka-tippling counterpoint “The quicker we drink it the sooner it will be gone”) between his despair and that of Anna Petrovna as an educated, unorthodox woman who has left with nothing worthwhile to do (“What am I here for?  Why am I alive?”).  Recommended.'

To read the full review click here to visit The Independent online.

'Originally Howard Davies was due to preside over this revival of a rarely performed play by Chekhov, a finely observed mix of banter, romance and despair. But the much-loved director’s illness and untimely death in October led to his friend Jonathan Kent stepping into the breach.'

'This production uses not the version of Chekhov’s Platonov that Kent previously chose — by David Hare — but one by Michael Frayn that premiered in the Eighties. It trims the Russian’s sprawling and unfocused effort into something manageable and yet at times wildly absurd, the most farcical parts of which are authentically Chekhovian rather than being Frayn’s additions.'

'At its heart is Geoffrey Streatfeild as Platonov, a charismatic playboy who’s improbably become a teacher but still magnetises women. He toys with their affections, and Streatfeild’s vigorous, layered performance makes him seem a rumpled maverick, dreamy and boastful yet also intriguingly bitter.'

'There’s elegant work from Justine Mitchell as seductive widow Anna. Matthew Flynn injects menace as a thievish local misfit and Gunnar Cauthery captures the pedantic awkwardness of the community’s touchy doctor.'

'The tension in the key relationships is palpable, and the result feels like a necessary tribute to Howard Davies, a sublime interpreter of Russian drama and pretty much everything else.'

To read the full review click here to visit the Evening Standard online.

'All the traditional Chekhovian themes – wasted lives, doomed loves, bankrupt gentry – are present here at the start of his dramatic career... in place of the usual tragicomedy, expert adapter, Michael Frayn gives us a new genre of ‘tragifarce’.'

'Geoffrey Streatfeild endows the protagonist, Platonov, with shaggy amiability and there is notable support from Justine Mitchell, Rebecca Humphries and Matthew Flynn.'

To read the full review click here to visit Sunday Express online