Director Sean McLevy compares his new production of Russian playwright Ivan Turgenev’s A Month In The Country to an old-fashioned Alan Ayckbourn play.

“It’s about the intensity of Ayckbourn,” he says.

“The reason why Ayckbourn is so funny is because he puts characters in situations that they really want to get out of, and we can all recognise that.

“We all know that feeling of being trapped by a situation, trapped by marriage, trapped by your work, and just trying to create some drama out of it.

“And I think we all love a bit of drama; if life gets a bit dull, you tend to create a little bit more.”

Turgenev’s A Month In The Country is a comedy of manners set in mid 19th-century Russia.

The hot summer sun is stifling the patrons of the gardens of a country house. Natalya Petrovna is a beautiful, bored housewife and mother married to a rich landowner, Arkadi Islaev, who is seven years older.

She resists the approaches of admiring friend Mikhail Rakitin, but cannot control her feelings for handsome 21-year-old student Aleksei Belyaev, who is employed as a tutor for her son.

As Natalya falls in love with Aleksei, so does her ward Vera, the family’s 17-year-old foster daughter.

“It’s sexy and it’s funny,” adds McLevy, whose production is using the adaptation by Irish playwright Brian Friel performed at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2010.

“His adaptation is witty, brutal at times, and quite poetic. The word I would use to describe it is bright, in-your-face.

“He has brought it up to date but we are keeping it in Russia and the language is very modern.”

A Month In The Country precedes Chekov by some 50 years and anticipates the great writer’s love triangles – people trapped in awkward, unhappy situations and black humour.

Turgenev’s piece, which was penned in 1861 and premiered in 1872, is a big production with a large cast. There are big, ebullient characters, adds McLevy.

“The characters are so intense and so unhappy with their lives they create drama to make them feel alive.”

The month of passion, frustration and laughter unravels as Rakitin struggles with his love for Natalya, she battles with her love for Belyaevm, while Vera and Aleksei draw closer and Islayev finally suspects something is amiss.

The play is being performed by final-year students from Brighton’s Academy Of Creative Training as their swansong before they make the step into the professional world.

The cast have done all the work – from building the set from scratch, to finding and making costumes and selecting music.

McLevy’s message to the students was to avoid indulgence.

“That is the hard bit, for the actors not to be indulgent in their misery so the audience can laugh at the situation rather than being emotionally distressed by it.”

  • A Month In The Country is at The Old Market, Upper Market Street, Hove, from Thursday, April 3, to Saturday, April 5. 8pm, Saturday matinee 2.30pm, £12.50. Call 01273 201801
  • The Academy Of Creative Training is now holding auditions for next year’s intake. Visit actbrighton.org for more details. Previous graduates include CBeebies presenter Sidney Sloane, and recent alumnae Javier Rasero, who is currently starring in King Lear at the National Theatre with Simon Russell Beale.