London theatregoers have known for years there’s much more to Andrew Scott than Sherlock’s Moriarty and Fleabag’s hot priest, but this one-man Vanya is a revelation and a sensation. Writer Simon Stephens transposes Chekhov’s tragicomedy to a 20th-century Irish farm: the story and the pathos is preserved, the characters cast in a new light.
Scott plays all of them, differentiating men and women, young and old, with slight changes of vocal register and body language. His performance is wry, confiding, often archly funny, briefly very sexy and sometimes wrenchingly sad. It’s a masterclass in actorly skill, in tone and pacing. Scott, Stephens, director Sam Yates and designer Rosanna Vize all have equal billing as co-creators.
