Anton Chekhov, author of The Seagull, was of the Russian middle class. Life in Russia in 1895, when, at the age of 35, he wrote the play, was very different from what it became after the Revolution some 20 years later, but Chekhov had left-wing sympathies and respect for his work continued.

The more important reason for his reputation today is his innovative dramatic technique, combining social realism with humane subtlety. This new version by John Donnelly is the extent to which this realism can be transferred to our own day.

The Nuffield Theatre (Southampton) and the Derby Theatre, co-producers, have assembled a strong team.

The women’s parts are particularly challenging: Abigail Cruttenden as Irina, and Pearl Chanda as Nina, who identifies with a seagull that has been casually shot, effectively convey the competing pressures of profession and love – not only romantic love, but relations within the limited family circle with which the play mainly deals.

Of the men, David Beames is a convincing Yevgeny, rendering both the wisdom and foolishness of an older man. Alexander Cobb performs with conviction as Irina’s son Konstantin.

Did the director, Blanche McIntyre, intend the somewhat stylised acting at the start? By the time of the violent emotions of the third and fourth acts, emerging from the boredom of bourgeois life, the cast had settled down.

In a new version of The Seagull, it is necessary to choose between completely updating the play and re-interpreting late 19th Century Russia. Costumes of a somewhat indeterminate late 20th Century era suggest the former; references to horses, the latter.

There is much use of modern manners and modern everyday speech, but Chekhov’s references to traditional values are unchanged, perhaps because it is hardly possible to render the perplexities of the late 19th Century in today’s language. But to be overshadowed by one’s creative genius is an eternal insight of this play.

Graham Mordue