Vanya - Andrew Scott one-man show - Richmond & Duke of Yorks

Awards buzz is growing with the glowing reviews of Andrew’s film, All of Us Strangers, which is currently screening at Telluride Film Festival (which is one of the most important venues of Oscar-bait films this autumn season, the other two being Venice and Toronto). All of Us Strangers is directed by Andrew Haigh and also starring Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell, and Claire Foy.

Andrew Scott’s Uncle Vanya is getting divisive reviews so far, and I don’t know if it’s even a good idea to act out all characters of an entire play/book (I’m curious how Sarah Snook will pull this off with Dorian Gray) all on your own (well, there was Ben Daniels who played all the men in Medea earlier this year, but he was opposite Sophie Okonedo, while Jodie Comer’s Prima Facie was a new work in the UK and Broadway and not based on classics). Regardless on Uncle Vanya’s reception, I hope Andrew’s latest film success will do wonders too. If he’s lucky, he could be nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars, a rare feat for openly gay actors.

How much are programmes?

Thanks. That’s about “normal” for one of them, now. Sadly.

And I’ve noticed so many are now like 70% ads and, well that REALLY upsets me. I’ll spend £6 on one but give me something that I won’t be finished reading by the time I find my seat.

Yes. I saw it last night. I can confirm that it has a set.

Saw this last night, and was sadly thoroughly disappointed.

Simultaneously not much going on, whilst also being cluttered and clumsy.
I think Andrew Scott is a terrific performer, but I was left wondering what the show would be like with a different actor in the role.

I think I'm in agreement with the majority here, this is all about Andrew Scott's talent and it clearly attracted his fans, and I enjoyed watching him for a couple of hours- but I wonder how many in the audience understood what was going on, only based on this and not knowing anything about Uncle Vanya. I've seen the play before and even I found it a bit confusing.I don't regret seeing it but I must say it left me cold. Enraptured audience though!

It is a good interview (liked the disussion about standing ovations!) and reminded me of another time I saw Andrew Scott onstage: Birdland! Quite a strange piece. He doesn't settle for easy.

jm25 - for £10 I would not hesitate for even a nanosecond! IMO, it doesn't hurt to know the plot of Uncle Vanya so if you have time, you might read a short synopsis. Enjoy!

Well, this was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I read the plot in a lot of detail beforehand and was glad I did because I'd have been hopelessly, hopelessly lost otherwise. Even the name changes took a while to get used to!

It was engaging enough all throughout, which I suppose is an achievement in itself for a one man performance. But, like others, the main question I was left with was just... why? Nothing about the plot or direction suggested any great need to cut out the other actors, so I'm struggling to work out what the motivation was.

Andrew Scott is really good but it's not the kind of one-man performance that brings the house down in the way that Jodie Comer did in Prima Facie or Jack Holden did in Cruise. He plays each role very well but if I have one criticism it's that there's not quite enough of a distinction between some of the characters. So, again, you probably need to be reasonably familiar with the text to follow it.

The script is the other main positive. Even when going into plays blind, I can usually tell if a text has had the language modernised, especially from translation, as it's such a hard thing to do and (in my experience) so rarely done well. In fairness to this, I thought it was modernised extremely well - so full credit to Simon Stephens. Interestingly, although the playtext splits up all the individual roles rather than presenting them as a monologue, it contains very clear instructions that it's meant to be performed by a single actor. I'd be far more interested in seeing this version done with a full ensemble.

All in all, worth seeing - but once is definitely enough. 3 stars.

I have no idea how to rate this. Probably 4 stars for Andrew Scott's performance and 3 stars for the overall production. I really should have read a synopsis of Uncle Vanya before going.

And I have a question.... when Scott enters, he puts a water bottle by the 'doorway' at the rear of the stage.
Then goes to the sink and twinkles at the audience as he plays with the stage and house lights. Is this the actor or a character, and why is he doing this?