Guilt-free hilarity: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Charing Cross Theatre reviewed

World-class sex bomb Janie Dee stars in a fabulously silly revival of the American comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. She plays a movie diva, Masha, who loves to flaunt her wealth in front of her mousy sister and bookish brother. Striding into the family home with her long hair flying and her scarlet lips curling, she narrows her eyes and flings shafts of desire in all directions. Then she arches her neck and tosses back her head to give her bust an extra half-inch of uplift. A stunning display.

The show is about three middle-aged siblings whose over-intellectual parents named them after characters in Chekhov plays. Vanya is a hopeless dreamer. Sonia pines for sexual attention but can’t compete with Masha whose dazzling looks are fading and whose young boyfriend, Spike, has a wandering eye. The characters are invited to a fancy-dress party and bossy Masha decides to go as Snow White. Her siblings, she insists, must dress as dwarfs. She drags along an ambitious young thesp, Nina, who dotes on Masha and covets her fame and success.

It sounds a little contrived but the ramshackle structure is cleverly handled by the writer, Christopher Durang, who knows how to use sex to keep a story moving. And he maintains a good strike rate of gags. In places it’s as corny as hell and the Chekhov references are laid on with a trowel but the spirit is capricious and fun-loving, never earnest. Director Walter Bobbie knows exactly what he wants from this caper — to take the audience on a wild two-hour ride.

The six characters also embody many of the hot-button issues favoured by progressive theatres: Vanya is gay, Sonia is adopted, Spike is bi-curious, Masha is a sex addict, Nina is mixed-race and the maid, Cassandra, is mentally unstable.