Simply awesome acting in powerful play at Coventry theatre

Children rarely forgive their parents for not living up to their own high standards. In Arcola Theatre’s brilliant adaptation of Chekhov’s first and longest play, the characters bemoan a lack of parental guidance. In between they get drunk, have affairs, fight, and moan about their unhappy lot.

If this sounds depressing, don’t be put off. Sons Without Fathers is a powerful theatrical experience that you will not easily forget. The original play, titled Fatherlessness, lasted some eight hours. This one clocks in at around three hours. There is not a moment when the tragic tale of a lost generation does not grip the audience.

Helena Kaut-Howson has taken just one thread in the original and turned it into a tragic farce. The acting is superb. Selfish, misguided, disappointed though the characters are, they are so real you don’t know if you want to comfort them or reprimand them: like a parent you just want to do something to stop them being so unhappy. Jack Laskey’s tousle-haired portrayal of the central character Platonov, a school teacher adrift in this provincial backwater, is simply awesome.

The set refers to a post-Soviet Russia that could as well stand for the West in the 21st century, and the play is bang up to date in its depiction of a generation looking for something to believe in more than the solace of drink and sex.

What the future holds for these bright young things is unclear - and nothing less than a generation is at stake.

Nick Le Mesurier