As an internationally acclaimed playwright who is also proficient in Russian, Michael Frayn is ideally placed to offer us a wholly accurate yet modern and playable translation of Chekhov's classic play. For this edition he has also provided a full introduction and a chronology of Chekhov's life and works. Michael Frayn's ambition in translating the piece was to recreate for an English audience the naturalness and 'glancing eloquence' of the original, and I think he succeeds completely Spectator Frayn's translation is full of those little liberties and intimacies of ordinary speech which override grammar and syntax and betray moods of ordinary people and the impulses of the heart Daily Telegraph