The Cherry Orchard - Royal Shakespeare Company Review

Review by Mark

Tickets were gifted in return for an honest review

There is an unmistakable electricity in the air at Stratford-Upon-Avon when star power of this magnitude meets Anton Chekhov’s final masterwork. 

Helen Hunt as Ranyevskaya and Kenneth Branagh as Lopakhin. Photo by Johan Persson.

Laura Wade’s new adaptation directed by Tamara Harvey, The Cherry Orchard becomes an arena for titans - a poignant, razor-sharp collision between an unravelling aristocracy and the unrelenting march of the future.

At the centre of the of the play is Helen Hunt’s Madame Ranyevskaya, returning from a five-year stint in Paris to find her childhood home and it's cherry orchard crumbling under staggering debt. Hunt captures Ranyevskaya’s tragic contradiction superbly: she is luminous and charming, yet incapable of facing reality. Every fluttering gesture and breathless laugh reveals a woman using extravagance to outrun unbearable personal grief. When faced with the loss of her beloved cherry orchard, she doesn't fight; she simply retreats into childhood memories and empty hope, losing sight of reality, anchoring the production's emotional core with a fragile elegance.

Opposite her, Kenneth Branagh gives a powerful performance as Lopakhin, driving the plot's central conflict. As the son of a serf who worked the land where the cherry orchard stands, Branagh plays Lopakhin not as a cold opportunist, but as a hyper-energetic, pragmatic visionary who is genuinely desperate to save the family from ruin. Lopakhin practically begs Ranyevskaya to lease the land for summer cottages to pay off the mortgage before auction day. When his practical advice falls on deaf ears, the tension builds toward an inevitable breaking point. Branagh makes Lopakhin's ultimate purchase of the estate feel like a complex double-edged sword; a thrilling personal victory over class oppression, delivered with a clumsy, desperate need for validation that leaves the moment feeling deeply bittersweet.

Bill Pullman rounds out the star named trio with a wonderfully eccentric, deeply affection-filled turn as Ranyevskaya’s brother, Gaev. Pullman plays the billiard-obsessed, speech-making aristocrat not as a mere caricature, but as a man genuinely insulated from reality by a cushion of privilege and absurdity. Whether he is delivering a dramatically impassioned ode to an ancient bookcase or distractedly practicing imaginary bank shots mid-crisis, Pullman infuses the character with a breezy, charming harmlessness—making Gaev's total helplessness in the face of economic ruin all the more poignant.

The real standout performance in the production comes from Esther Smith, who delivers an outstanding, deeply felt performance as Madame Ranyevskaya’s adopted daughter, Varya. Smith brings a grounded, quiet strength to a role that so easily gets lost among the play's larger-than-life eccentrics. She plays Varya with a heart-wrenching blend of pragmatic composure and suppressed longing, making her unfulfilled romance and agonising non-proposal scene with Lopakhin one of the production's most poignant, emotionally arresting highlights. 

Esther Smith as Varya and Amber Gadd as Dunyasha. Photo by Johan Persson.

Alfred Enoch brings a lively, earnest warmth to the eternal student Trofimov, avoiding preachiness in favour of endearing, idealistic bluster. His high-minded speeches about work and progress feel less like harsh lectures and more like the endearingly flawed ideals of a perpetual academic. Rising star Chumisa Dornford-May brings a bright, youthful warmth to Ranyevskaya’s teenage daughter. Her scene work alongside Enoch captures a sweet, hopeful energy, acting as a crucial counterweight to the older generation’s hopeless nostalgia and self-destruction. Amber Gadd impresses as Dunyasha. Portraying the social aspirations and delicate sensibilities with sharp comedic beats, highlighting how the changing social order affects the estate from the top down.

Sophie Stone brings a distinctive, eccentric energy to the governess Sharlotta, balancing quirky magic tricks and physical flair with an underlying poignant sense of isolation. Alongside her in the household, Julian Moore-Cook delivers a sharply observed performance as Yasha, the self-absorbed young manservant newly returned from Paris. Moore-Cook captures Yasha's disaffected, dismissive arrogance and calculating opportunism, effectively highlighting the changing generational and class dynamics threatening the traditional order on the crumbling estate.

There is great wit in the language and the performances with comedic elements are well measured, making sure that it doesn't stray to far into a farce. Michael Elwyn, Guy Henry and Andy Rush turn in brilliantly comedic performances as Firs, Pishchik and Yepikhodov. Elwyn’s Firs is a masterclass in physical comedy and pinpoint timing; he shufflingly navigates the collapsing house like a stubborn relic, muttering devastatingly funny slights under his breath while obsessing over coats and tea service as the world burns around him. Meanwhile, Henry plays the perpetually bankrupt nobleman Pishchik with a glorious, cartoonish desperation. Boundlessly optimistic despite drowning in loans, Henry bounding across the stage borrowing money only to immediately lose it or miraculously pull off a life-saving miracle; he injects a chaotic, vaudevillian energy that keeps the tragedy delightfully buoyant. Rush delivers physical comedy with great timing. He manages to make Yepikhodov’s constant blunders both genuinely funny and pitiable, embodying the play's tragicomic tone.

While these comic high notes land with precision and plenty of laughter, the production does occasionally struggle to smooth out the play’s abrupt tonal shifts. The emotional stakes occasionally feel a bit too softened around the edges, missing that sharp, melancholic bite when the axe finally falls. Moving seamlessly between sharp, vaudevillian farce and the quiet, devastating heartbreak is a notoriously tricky balance to strike. At times the sudden lurches from high-energy banter to existential despair feel a little jarring rather than fluid.

Anna Fleischle’s set design makes gorgeous use of the Swan’s unique space. Faded grandeur, lace-draped furniture, and delicate bare branches hanging overhead subtly frame the haunting presence of the unseen orchard beyond. Paired with Claire Windsor’s understated sound design, where ambient birdsong slowly yields to the ominous, distant thud of axes, the atmosphere is rich and immersive.

Tamara Harvey and Laura Wade have crafted a production that feels vividly alive. While it occasionally trades away a pinch of Chekhovian devastation in favour of warmth and accessibility, it remains an engrossing, beautifully detailed piece of theatre. It stands as a brilliant testament to the Swan Theatre’s intimate power, delivering a rich, memorable night in Stratford-Upon-Avon that feels entirely worth the ticket. It's worth seeing for calibre of actor and acting quality alone. As someone loudly proclaimed at the end of the show "the lives of the upper class, hey". 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Cherry Orchard plays at The Swan Theatre until Saturday 29th August 2026. Tickets are currently sold out but check for returns https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-cherry-orchard/

Sophie Stone (Sharlotta), Andy Rush (Yepikhodov), Amber Gadd (Dunyasha) and Julian Moore-Cook as Yasha. Photo by Johan Persson.