Review Round-Ups

Critics enjoy 'memorably vivid' Three Days in the Country

Patrick Marber’s adaptation opened at the Lyttelton Theatre last night

Mark Gatiss (Shpigelsky) and Debra Gillett (Lizaveta) in Three Days in the Country
Mark Gatiss (Shpigelsky) and Debra Gillett (Lizaveta) in Three Days in the Country
© Tristram Kenton

Michael Coveney, WhatsOnStage

★★★★

"There's hardly a moment to draw breath in Marber's tensile two-hour production"

"he still manages a mood that is both Russian and critically irreverent, with both Cherrelle Skeete's maidservant and confident newcomer Lily Sacofsky as Natalya's ward, Vera, also stuck on Belyaev, the latter diverted towards a boring rich neighbour, beautifully done by Nigel Betts"

"Neil Austin's lighting and, especially, Adam Cork's music, a rumbling thrum that occasionally erupts into Russian song, complete a fully achieved vision of the play"

Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph

★★★★

"Some may grumble that Mark Thompson's design strips things back too far, leaving the eye with barely enough to feed on. The setting is an extensive provincial Russian estate in the 1840s but naturalistic detail is scant."

"Mark Gatiss brings his usual air of winning English camp to the role, so familiar in Chekhov, of the wise but rueful visiting doctor — hilariously ending up on all fours with back-pain as he proposes"

"Two hours, well spent."

Sam Marlowe, The Times

★★★★

"Occasionally there's a whiff of soapiness, but overall the production is piercing, vital and ruefully funny."

"In Mark Thompson's stark, glassy design, a glowing red door suggests an elusive portal to bliss. Props are visible in the wings, alongside an onstage pianist whose plangent chords, and a thumping, amplified heartbeat, signal emotional crisis."

"Marber's directorial flourishes can be intrusive, the choreographed movement forced or staging cluttered. More often, though, the production is memorably vivid."

Quentin Letts, Daily Mail

★★★

"Amanda Drew is magnetic as Natalya, the rich wife trapped on the remote estate of her decent-but-dull husband (John Light)."

"Mr Marber, whose fluent adaptation is an act of admirable truncation, directs his own show. That is not always a good idea."

"Does it explain the actors sitting on chairs in full view of the audience when they are not 'on'? What a cliche of trendiness!"

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out

★★★★

"Has Englishman Patrick Marber written and directed the most Russian play ever? Triple distilled and freely adapted from Ivan Turgenyev's sprawling 1850 comedy of manners A Month in the Country, Marber's Three Days in the Country doesn't pussyfoot about with its extreme sense of elegy."

"Marber and his cast respond with intensity, atmosphere and some phenomenal acting."

"Bumblingly eccentric and slightly self-loathing, Gatiss is just perfect in his two big set-piece scenes, especially his hilariously formal attempt at a proposal to Debra Gillett's Lizaveta. And Drew is splendid, with the air of some magnificent, dangerous beast of the taiga restlessly pacing in an ornate zoo."

Three Days in the Country runs at the Lyttelton (National Theatre) until 21 October 2015.