IT has been observed that Chekhov is our second national playwright so strong an echo does he seem to find our collective consciousness, so often are his plays performed.

He is, like Larkin, a poet of disappointment. Though his characters may tilt at life, full of hope, they are doomed to fail, in love, in everything. The Three Sisters is no exception.

As the play opens in pre-revolutionary Russia, Irina, Olga and Masha, together with their brother Andrei, are marooned in the country, dreaming of return to Moscow.

Masha's marriage is loveless, at least on her part, while Andrei's, to the vulgar and socially-climbing Natasha, is also destined to founder. Nor does work provide the fulfilment Irina dreams of, while Andrei, who hoped to be a professor at a university, ends up instead as a local government official.

If all this makes the play sound depressing, it isn't; far from it.

Hailed as one of the greatest plays ever, this Theatre Royal Bath production which visited Malvern reminded me of the justice of that claim.

Some of the comedy I recall from a production at the Birmingham Rep three years ago is missing, although this picks up in the second half, but the ensemble playing is of a high quality and the interplay between the three sisters is especially fine. Imogen Stubbs, as Masha, almost steals the evening.

Although Serena Gordon as Olga is very effective. But best of all is Gerrard McArthur as the lovestruck, hopelessly optimistic Baron who must fall, and bleed, on the thorns of life.

PW