Anton Chekhov 
Seagull (NHB Classic Plays) 

A striking version of Chekhov’s classic play by Charlotte Pyke, John Kerr and Joseph Blatchley, restoring to the play the cuts demanded by the Russian censor in 1896.
In nineteenth-century rural Russia, an anxious young writer prepares the first performance of his new play for the two women in his life. The consequences are devastating, with everybody in love with the wrong person, and death hovering close by.
Through both comedy and tragedy, Seagull explores lives that are precariously balanced between love and indifference, success and failure, hope and despair.
This version of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull was first performed at the Arcola Theatre, London, in 2011.
'absorbingly vibrant – a Seagull that soars.' – The Times
'wonderfully nimble… the play feels fresh and vital… full of warmth and wit' – Stage
'new translation brings an immediacy and a vibrancy to the play that does it a world of good' – Whatsonstage.com

About the author

Joseph Blatchley first trained as an actor at Drama Centre, London. He has worked extensively in the theatre, film and television in England and France, working with Tony Richardson, Nick Roeg, Bill Douglas, François Truffaut and Peter Brook. He set up his own company in France, Le Masque et la Rose, and recently in the UK a new company, Runaway Theatre. He worked with Maurice Béjart at Mudra in Brussels, touring shows in Italy, France and Belgium. He studied film-making at the National Film and Television School. His short film Fragments has been shown in many festivals, including the Malmo Film Festival, and won ‘Outstanding Film of the Year’ at the London Film Festival. He appeared as Trofimov in Peter Brook’s renowned production of The Cherry Orchard in Paris. He has directed all of Chekhov’s major plays, including his own adaptation of Platonov, based on Nikita Mikhailkov’s celebrated film Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano. His work with Peter Brook, his contact with the great Russian teacher Vassili Skoric from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, and his work with many students in the UK and abroad have led him to a reappraisal of Chehkov’s masterpiece and brought about a fresh translation of this well-loved play. He has directed over seventy plays. In England his productions have included plays at LAMDA, GSMD, DCL, RADA, Hampstead Theatre, the White Bear Theatre, the Gate Theatre, Riverside Studios and Royal Exchange, Manchester.