We Are Three Sisters (Tour – Lancaster)

Any new show by Northern Broadsides is worth a look. And their new production – We are Three Sisters has garnered four and five star reviews in the national newspapers since it premiered last month.

It’s certainly a clever idea and concept as writer Blake Morrison has interwoven Chekhov’s Three Sisters with the Brontes and their lives in Haworth, Yorkshire. The play is set in the Brontes’ living room, creating a suitable sense of claustrophobia and repression, and the main action occurs through the many visitors and suitors to their home.

There’s much to like in the piece, the acting for one – as the performances are excellent and very evocative. Yet it also feels like an experiment in cleverness – rather than wanting to entertain, challenge or inspire the audience.

Right at the end of the play the sisters sit around the table and talk about how they will be remembered when they die  – it was a quiet, subtle moment and one I would have liked to have seen a lot more of in the rest of the play.

– Susan Riley