Vanya starring Andrew Scott – Reviews

"Five stars for Andrew Scott in a stunning solo Vanya"

"Andrew Scott plays eight characters in this stunning solo version of Chekhov’s great Uncle Vanya."

"It’s not just that he manages to conjure, so deftly, the living characters in Chekhov’s masterpiece... It’s his ability to convey this shared sense of loss and disorientation that makes this staging so revelatory and so moving."

"His intimate delivery, together with the easy contemporaneity of Simon Stephens’ adaptation and the makeshift style of Sam Yates’s production, draws us in."

"Stephens’ script is funny, frank and conversational."

"It’s a benefit to know the play, and there are passages where you might get slightly lost. But this is a beautiful, heartbreaking response to Chekhov’s tragicomedy"

"Andrew Scott gives a superhuman turn in this deeply emotional solo version of the Chekhov masterpiece"

"A one-man version of ‘Uncle Vanya’ obviously sounds like an absolutely horrible idea, some real dark Simon Callow shit. But ‘Vanya’ – a solo reworking of Chekhov’s play – is a truly remarkable performance from Andrew Scott: not a man hammily flexing between roles but something more profound and complicated, a headlong odyssey into the devastating emotions at the play’s heart."

"It’s very difficult to quantify what it and Scott are doing: though the actor brings distinct personalities, mannerisms and accents for the different characters, it doesn’t feel as simple as saying he’s simply doing the play normally, but on his own. The characters are not totally divisible. It inevitably loses some coherence and sense of narrative. But in doing so it becomes almost agonisingly intimate."

"... it’s hard not to mostly come out without a sense of awe at Scott, another defining acting performance from a performer who doesn’t have any mode besides magical."

"An acting masterclass from the mercurial Andrew Scott"

"This one-man take on Chekhov is no vanity project or gimmick: it’s a distillation of his compassion and humanity that creates something new."

"... this one-man Vanya is a revelation and a sensation. Writer Simon Stephens transposes Chekhov’s tragicomedy to a 20th-century Irish farm: the story and the pathos is preserved, the characters cast in a new light."

"Scott plays all of them, differentiating men and women, young and old, with slight changes of vocal register and body language. His performance is wry, confiding, often archly funny, briefly very sexy and sometimes wrenchingly sad. It’s a masterclass in actorly skill, in tone and pacing. Scott, Stephens, director Sam Yates and designer Rosanna Vize all have equal billing as co-creators."

"But this show isn’t a vanity project, a gimmick or a rip-off of Chekhov: it’s a distillation of his compassion and humanity that creates something new. Stephens, Yates and Vize deserve massive kudos; but it’s Scott’s mercurial talent that makes it transfixing."

"Andrew Scott’s one-man Chekhov is the performance of the year"

"Is solo Chekhov a vanity project? Quite possibly – but it’s exquisite"

"Is this a high-end cultural vanity project? Quite possibly. Does Scott give the performance of the year in it? Absolutely. He held an excitable first-night audience spellbound in rapt silence for the 100-minute duration of Sam Yates’s beautiful production."

"Vanya is no longer the de facto hero of the play that bears his name; instead, Scott compellingly foregrounds the quasi-love triangle that develops between Sonia, Helena and Michael. Never would I have imagined the line “You wanted to see my maps?” could be so deliciously suggestive."

"One Irish actor playing eight parts in an English-language spin on a Russian play that is 125 years old manages, magically, to offer as bleak and searing an exposé of the human condition as it is possible to get."

"Andrew Scott’s solo tour-de-force in the West End"

"Wow. This astonishing version of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya is a tour-de-force by the actor Andrew Scott in which he takes on eight roles while all the time preserving the perfect balance of comedy and tragedy that makes this the most humane of plays. What could have felt like a gimmick becomes a revelation."

"Yet it is the subtlety of the storytelling that is so remarkable. You can hear a pin drop as he morphs gracefully between each participant, lowering his voice slightly as the doctor Michael, drawling in sunglasses as Vanya"

"Andrew Scott is mesmerising in this eccentric piece of event theatre"

"The Fleabag star plays every part brilliantly in the Chekhov classic, creating an entire emotional world for each role"

"... Scott is one of our greatest stage actors, and I am happy to say is on mesmerising form here, creating a whole emotional world for each role, and performances that are discrete enough to make you feel you are watching a quiet battle between the various wretched individuals wasting away on a country estate."

"I should point out that this Vanya, a modern-day version by Simon Stephens (co-created by Scott and director Sam Yates), will not be for everyone. Those who have never seen the original may be baffled, and even if you have, I would advise that you reacquaint yourself beforehand."

"He has an air of danger, and the mercurial thread running through his best performances is seen to great effect here."

"Much I have seen on stage, post-Covid, has lacked daring, so this emotionally charged piece of event theatre feels like an eccentrically welcome arrival in the West End."

"Masterclass in acting"

"Andrew Scott’s shapeshifting solo Chekhov performance is haunting and thrillingly theatrical"

"Watching this extraordinary production, you might glimpse your own regrets, memories and family history flitting, wraith-like, among the looming shadows. Chekhov can do that to you. But this version, adapted by Simon Stephens, directed by Sam Yates and performed and co-created by Andrew Scott, has a next-level, uncanny intimacy: sometimes it almost feels more like a seance than a play."

"Admittedly, anyone unfamiliar with Chekhov’s text might be bemused. But everyone will recognise the cadences of longing, disappointment, grief and fragile hope. There’s wry humour, too..."

"Andrew Scott’s take on Chekhov is funny, sexy and surprisingly emotional"

"‘Fleabag’ star plays all eight characters in refreshingly lively one-man ‘Uncle Vanya’"

"I had doubts about whether even a towering acting talent like Andrew Scott could make a one-man version of Uncle Vanya feel like more than a gimmick. But Fleabag’s hot priest has delivered a performance that Chekhov fans will want to fall to their knees and adore: the funniest, sexiest, most surprisingly emotional take on this story of rural desolation that you could wish for."

"In a psychologically astute touch from Stephens, Alexander becomes an auteur film director, and Ivan’s labours are the ultimate tribute of a superfan who watches his idol’s movies every night."

"It could so easily feel tricksy, but Scott’s performance has a raw intensity that ignites this ingenious staging."

"Andrew Scott excels in one-man Chekhov"

"The actor gives thrillingly virtuoso performances as multiple characters in an entertaining reimagining but he cannot penetrate any one part deeply enough for tragedy to be felt"

"If a one-man production of Anton Chekhov’s 1898 tragicomedy sounds like a tall order, or a terrible gimmick, it picks just the actor for the job in Andrew Scott. He holds us captive with his gamut of roles although the play itself is overshadowed by its high concept."

"Scott gives carefully controlled, thrillingly virtuoso physical performances. He exits as one character and enters as another, excelling in the plate-juggling feat of playing two or more characters in conversation."

"It is precisely because Scott is so exceptional that we want more than the actorly somersaults he performs. By its nature this playful dramatic experiment cannot allow him to penetrate any one part deeply or devastatingly enough for the tragedy to be truly felt by the end."

"Great Scott! Show is less than the sum of its parts"

"It’s one of the greatest plays ever written. He’s a great actor... So what can go wrong when the mighty Andrew Scott stars in a one-man rejig of Chekhov’s 1898 tragicomedy Uncle Vanya? Quite a lot, it turns out."

"Vanya lasts less than two hours but is played at such a consistently doleful pitch that it feels longer."

"Simon Stephens’s new version is full of nimble touches."

"It’s not a joy to watch, though. Scott has umpteen strengths, but being the man of a thousand voices is not one of them."

"Do I skate over moments of wit and wonder? Well, there’s stuff to love in here, details to delight in if you can find your way to them. And that’s a big if. Chekhov needs to be more dynamic than it is doleful. The case is not made here that that is a job best assigned to only one person."

"Andrew Scott Plays Every Part in ‘Vanya.’ Why?"

"In London, transforming Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” into a one-man show is an impressive feat, but it costs the play its pathos."

"An ambitious new adaptation of this bleakly funny play looks to tease out its essence by stripping it down to its barest elements."

"Scott gives an accomplished and engaging performance, but the one-man-show format throws up challenges, and ultimately doesn’t quite do justice to the play’s moral complexity and emotional resonance."

"The end product is what counts, and in this instance, the play is not well served; if anything, its pathos is diluted. Constraint for its own sake is self-indulgence, and there’s a fine line between a conceit and a mere gimmick."