Another Three Sisters, East Anglian Daily Times

The Long Shop Museum was the perfect setting for the opening performance of Eastern Angles' summer tour - an intriguing relocation of the great theatrical classic Three Sisters to the Leiston of the late 70s and early 80s.

An enjoyable adaptation of Chekhov's wonderful story of loss, longing and broken dreams is given striking local colour by setting the drama against the decline and fall of the town's great engineering works.

The production has all the qualities we have come to expect from the region's premier touring company - a good story well told; tight, nimble ensemble acting; clever, economical sets, and just the right smattering of local history.

Anna, Marsha and Irena, the three sisters of the title, gather at the family home in Leiston - left by their late father to their brother Andrew, a struggling writer - to celebrate the youngest, Irena's, 21^st birthday.

Anna, the oldest, is the practical, no-nonsense sort, strongly feminist and on every trendy committee imaginable, while Marsha is the romantic one, a teacher trapped in an unhappy marriage and nostalgic for the heady days when their late mother was at the centre of the social whirl in fashionable 60s Chelsea.

Irena, a recent graduate with a hankering to work in Africa, is pursued by two men, friends from opposite ends of the social scale, Nicholas, ex-public school, and Solly, a soon to be ex-factory worker.

Four years pass.   Andrew, trapped into marriage by social-climbing Natalie, never finishes his novel and ends up mortgaging his family home to pay for his wife's business ventures.

Marsha embarks on a hopeless love affair with an older man, Vivian, a Sizewell scientist with a suicidal wife, while Irena's dreams of Africa are frustrated by Nicholas's decision to drop out and sign on.   The friendship between Solly and Nicholas becomes more strained when the engineering works close.

Tragedy looms, but the play is far from being just another depressing tale of doom and gloom.   Chekhov always maintained his works were comedies and Ivan Cutting's version, too, brims with humour, from the witty snappy dialogue to moments of pure slapstick - house-husband Andrew's attempt to clean the kitchen floor without standing on it is a gem.

Agnes Hutton, Catherine Gill and Charlotte Parry as Anna, Marsha and Irena give excellent performances.   They are totally credible as sisters, quickly establishing that frank, easy, open-hearted manner with each other, and their scenes together are among the best.

Nicola Connell has a thoroughly good time playing the bitchy Natalie, and Sean Cannon is affecting as the diffident, put-upon Andrew.   Only the relationship between Marsha and Vivian doesn't quite convince.

Eastern Angles are taking this production to various locations in East Anglia, some of which you can bring a picnic to.   What better way to spend a summer evening than a light, al fresco meal as starter, followed by a really good, meaty play.

James Hayward, EADT