It was like watching a dramatised essay: for the invigorating power of anger, against the emasculating qualities of pity and virtue. Barker may seek to deny theatre's role as either entertainment - he has described that elsewhere as a "nightmare" - or as consolation The two reasons most people go. To criticise (Uncle) Vanya for failing to offer the usual diet would be like a vegetarian complaining about his meal in an Angus Steak House.Theatre details: Going Out, page 10.. Few things show up the residual island-nationness in British attitudes to modern music than the way we've hedged our bets on Hans Werner Henze. Of course we celebrate his achievements and have been happy to accept him as Important. But Important, principally, elsewhere - in Austro-German Europe.

My guess is that there's a historical grudge at work here: a gut belief that Austria-Germany has had more than its share of musical profile in the past 250 years, and that the pendulum must have swung in some other direction by now. But this production, directed by the author, has a highly charged, hallucinatory quality that left me numb. It's Ivan, please.(Uncle) Vanya might have been a more exhilarating reversal of Chekhov's themes if it had followed Chekhov's stagecraft more closely. He refuses, for a start, to be called by the diminutives of "uncle" or "Vanya". In Chekhov's version, Act Three ends with Vanya firing his revolver at Serebriakov, the retired professor He misses, and sinks into a chair exhausted In Barker's version, Vanya doesn't miss Serebriakov dies Vanya fights his way through to a passionate, engaged life.

In (Uncle) Vanya, which reached London for one week only, Howard Barker decides to take it somewhere. Barker has a habit of reversing expectations (we expect nothing less of him) and his Vanya refuses to wallow in "toxic resentment". His criticism of Uncle Vanya, in particular, was that "It doesn't go anywhere". It's difficult to trust the material, which lurches into the ludicrous. Henry arrives with a black eye claiming someone has hit him with a Toblerone.Eldridge ends up doing in A Week With Tony just what he skilfully avoided doing in Serving It Up He patronises his characters.

If Tories are so stupid, you wonder, how come they always end up on the winning side?Tolstoy told Chekhov that he disliked his plays even more than he disliked Shakespeare's. Henry's father arrives from a Masonic meeting looking nothing like the Masons who congregate in London's Long Acre. This particular week in Tony's life sees the build-up to the pounds 40,000 wedding that he is throwing for his acquisitive daughter Elizabeth (Celia Robertson). She's marrying Henry (Theo Fraser Steele), a genial goof from the City who only takes off his pinstripe to put on a kitchen apron. Tony's problem is that he has run out of money.Eldridge sketches in this world with predictable details - Ascot-style hats, champagne bottles, and confessions to having cried when Thatcher got the boot The details are broad and unconvincing.