Review: Anna Karenina

At nearly 1000 pages, the challenge of reimagining Tolstoy's Anna Karenina for the stage is a fairly significant one – but Lesley Hart has taken it on and delivered a tightly packed two-and-a-half-hour show. Her heady reimagining of the Russian masterpiece assaults the senses, with lively characterisation and updated modern-day language. This textual adjustment occasionally misses the mark, jarring with the high society setting that remains faithful to Tolstoy's writing.

It isn't helped by the sometimes pantomime-like delivery, which, paired with the fast-paced nature of the production, can be almost overwhelming in its volume.

The production more generally felt as though it was straddling two potential interpretations: traditional and true to the original, or an updated, modernised version. The set was stripped back to an almost minimalist extent, but the furniture that was used was 19th-century in approach and sometimes overly fussy. A push in one or other direction would have helped give the interpretation thepurpose it needed.