When Chekov premiered The Seagull on the 17th of October 1896 at the Alexadriskey Theatre in St Petersburg the audience found it truly shocking, some jeered, some walked out, some just sat bewildered. It is only right, therefore that Headlong Theatre's touring production of John Donnelly's lively adaptation has the power to shock even the cultured audience of The Oxford Playhouse.

For those unfamiliar with the play, all the action takes place on a vast country estate owned by Petr, an elderly and retired civil servant. He is visited by his sister Irina, a renowned stage actress, her son Konstantin an avant-garde playwright who wants to revolutionize the theatre and overturn the silted regime of which his mother is part, and her lover Boris, an accomplished mainstream author. Also in the mix is Nina, the daughter of a local wealthy landowner and object of Konstanstin's affections. However, Nina is hopelessly starstruck by Boris thus creating one of the many Shakespeare-inspired love triangles that make this play so timelessly watchable.

The entire production is wrong-footingly anachronistic. Laura Hopkins provides the blank canvas set which gives the play a locationless feel. There is a raised section of the stage that is also used as a see-saw and the back wall is often sprayed with drawings and writing (the purpose of this, however, is confusing). John Donnelly's new adaptation gives the script the Deadwood treatment as it replaces the old fashioned cuss words of the original text with F's, S's and C's. Whilst this might divide the audience, it certainly grabs their attention.

The updating of the characters into a modern setting is a joy. With more traditional versions of the text Konstantin often becomes whiny and irksome. Alexander Cobb combats this problem with ease by satirising the character and making him funny. Cobb makes Konstatin's self indulgent character traits so comdeic they are almost endearing, and the way he insults the world and characters around him makes for an unusually lovable lead. Other great performances come from Colin Haigh who clearly channels Jim Broadbent as Petr making him scruffy, dry and witty (the way he apologises for fainting is one of the best bits of the show!) and Pearl Chanda plays Nina's character arc perfectly as she starts out as dangerously naive but by the end discovers the importance of 'the ability to endure'.

Certainly, parts of the production are misjudged. Guy Hoare's lighting design may be atmospheric at times, but is too heavily dependent on lighting from the wings and, therefore often casts shadows across actors faces, and some of the more explicit content seemed rather unnecessary. But this is an interesting, anti-traditionalist production and very much in the spirit that Chekhov would have wanted.