RSC The Cherry Orchard review - Branagh goes full Belfast in Chekhov classic

Moving. It’s a word that means many things. In the context of The Cherry Orchard, it means moving house, moving on, moving with the merciless march of time.

One would expect it then also to mean emotionally moving. All change involves a loss, after all, and the family at the heart of Chekhov’s last play are losing a home, losing a beautiful orchard and, in one case, losing a love. The home is not what it was, and the orchard no longer gives fruit. But these people are reckoning with a past that was simple and happy, and that cannot contend with a present that is complicated and uncertain.

The curious thing about this production is that the story is told clearly and convincingly, and yet it remains oddly unmoving. The stage is awash with big names – most notably Kenneth Branagh, Helen Hunt and Bill Pullman – and the script is written by Laura Wade, one of the most celebrated playwrights of her generation. It is perfectly watchable and sometimes very funny. But there is a certain pastel quality to it, a gentleness and smoothness. It is as if a jagged rock has been rounded into a pebble. One expects Chekhov intended his audiences to be left feeling, even reeling.

The production is at its best when it defies its tone and properly bristles. Much of its life comes from two actors. One is Branagh, drawing on his Belfast roots with an abrasive charm and an accent that cuts like a hacksaw through the general tameness. He is kinetic and musical and witty as Lopakhin, a capitalist outsider of peasant stock in touch with harsh reality, and who jolts the tepid landowner Ranyevskaya (Hunt) and her family into action.

The other outstanding performance comes not from one of the production’s bigger names, but from Esther Smith as Varya, the adopted daughter of Ranyevskaya. Again, Smith’s voice sets her apart: it is lamentably rare to hear West Midlands accents in RSC productions in anything other than comic roles, but Smith speaks with her Stourbridge accent and it has a real power here, as warm and melodic as it is sharp and grounded. Her Varya is a practical woman who allows herself to dream; it is telling that she provoked the audience’s biggest gasp of the night in a moment of heartbreak. Michael Elwin deserves credit too for his performance as Firs, an old manservant who has become the personification of the house and its orchard.

Tamara Harvey directs the play. She is gifted with an eye for beauty and tenderness, which has worked wonderfully with some productions. But her Henry V was lacking in definition and bite, and so too is this. One could argue her approach allows Branagh and Smith to shine, but may be truer to say that their performances highlight shortcomings elsewhere. The cherry can be sweet and agreeable; it can also be sour and bitter. Perhaps some more of those latter qualities would have left everyone rather more moved.

Until August 29. Visit rsc.org.uk or call 01789 331111 to book.