The Cherry Orchard  
Theatre Royal Windsor  

USING much the same cast that put across a rather confused Hamlet at this venue during the summer, director Sean Mathias has come up with a considerably more satisfactory Cherry Orchard, thanks in part to the addition of two stage heavyweights, Francesca Annis and Martin Shaw.  

Annis is enthralling as the fragile, flighty aristocrat Ranyevskaya — exasperatingly unwilling to do anything about her fate as the family estate is sold from underneath her, yet so sweet and loveable that it becomes impossible to condemn her for too long.  

Partly this is because Annis also imparts Ranyevskaya with such subtle strength that we come to see the old lady as a great survivor, better adjusted to the oncoming rush of change than many of the self-deceiving procrastinators who surround her.