Does a vacation sound nice? Would a countryside retreat relax you? Would you be able to take your mind off of work or the news or the fact that the waitress delivering your sandwiches hates your guts? Summerfolk, an adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s 1904 Dachniki, poses all of these questions as gracefully as a studio photographer on family portrait day with a set and costumes by Peter McKintosh very much invoking that particular environment. An array of variously Russianified white chemises and linen suits stand in stark contrast to the woody green of the deconstructed dacha set that only vaguely implies era or country. Adapted by Nina and Moses Raine for a predominantly British company and directed by Robert Hastie for the English audience of the National Theatre this production is all over the place.
The tremendously competent cast works overtime to conceal the self-consciousness of a script that doesn’t quite want to take up any space on the stage. Paul Pyant’s lighting design, Alexandra Faye Braithwaite’s sound design and composer Nicola T. Chang’s music harmoniously cohere into an overwhelmingly pleasant picture and the play is visually and sonically unchallenging, leaving all the dirty work to its performers.
Torn between nineteenth century Russian naming conventions and modern British slang the dialogue doesn’t seem to know just exactly where it is or who’s listening. The characters visit each other’s “dachas” but when tension fizzes it does so “like Prosecco” significantly dulling the edge of Gorky’s sharp critique of a specific people in a particular time and place. The distance this adaptation’s authors enjoy from the time of the original work’s publication is a reflection of the apolitical and apathetic environment that has been fostered by the National Theatre more so than an indictment of its current irrelevancy. The historically inevitable revolution is here presented as fantastical lunacy you yourself can buy into.
Summerfolk runs until 29th April at the National Theatre with tickets available at https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/home
Reviewer: Kira Daniels
Reviewed: 19th March 2026
North West End UK Rating: