How funny is Chekhov? In John Byrne's witty transposition of Uncle Vanya to north-east Scotland in 1964, the laughs come thick and fast. But, although Brian Cox lends his massive presence to the ineffectual, hops-producing Varick, the sheer ingenuity of Byrne's adaptation somewhat diminishes the pain of the original play.
Byrne, as we know from Writer's Cramp, has a sharp eye for cultural pseudery. And he has most fun here with the character of Sandy Sheridan - the equivalent of Chekhov's Professor - a metropolitan art pundit who pens patronising pieces claiming "the landscape of Landseer is wasted on the Scots" and who, according to the envious Varick, has all the visual sophistication of Blind Pew. Byrne keeps up an endless supply of 1960s satirical jokes, with Varick's muddled mother poring over a slim volume entitled "The Rise and Fall of the Penis in 20th-Century Art."
But, although Byrne follows the structure of Chekhov's play, he never quite matches its rural isolation or spiritual desolation. You feel that in 1960s Britain Sandy's discontented trophy wife could easily get a divorce. And although the local doctor, Michael, has Astrov's ecological passion, the fact he lives a mere 40 miles away robs his departure of its definitiveness. Geography is crucial in Chekhov; the separation of his characters by physical, as well as emotional, distance has no precise parallel in modern Scotland.
If the play is enjoyable, it is because of Byrne's uproarious dialogue and the high-quality acting. Cox's Varick, with his sagging paunch, dangling braces and baggy corduroys, offers an unforgettable image of seedy obesity and the moment he attacks the silk-smocked Sandy with an inadequately fuelled power-saw is absurdly tragic. Cox, in fact, comes closest to conveying authentic Chekhovian suffering. But Richard Dillane's doctor, more tree-surgeon than general practitioner, has the right quirky obsessiveness; and there is fine support, in Mark Thomson's production, from David Ashton as the bouffant-haired Sandy, Isabel Brook as his waspishly beautiful wife and Kay Gallie as a homely nurse. Byrne may not leave you as emotionally drained as Chekhov but he hilariously conveys Scotland's sense of exclusion from the Swinging Sixties and abiding resentment of metropolitan taste-setters.
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