±«Óãtv

Susannah Clapp explores why the unforgettable Russian playwright Chekhov believed that he would be remembered for no more than seven and a half years.

Shortly before he died, the great Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, confided in a friend that he believed he would be remembered for seven, perhaps seven and a half years. One hundred and seven and a half years later, in the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth - and now that Chekhov is second only to Shakespeare in popularity as a playwright across the globe - Susannah Clapp explores his obsession with memory and the passage of time, and his fear of being forgotten. She gathers a special Chekhov repetory company, including Anna Maxwell Martin, at the ±«Óãtv's Maida Vale studios, to discuss and perform new translations by the young poet Sasha Dugdale, of Three Sisters, his most memory-obsessed play; and hears from Chekhov experts in Britain and Moscow, including the translator Michael Frayn, the director Declan Donnellan and Anatoly Smelianski, director of the Moscow Art Theatre school, to tell a story of broken clocks, spinning tops, tuberculosis and immortality.

Actors: Melissa Advani, Bruce Alexander, Joseph Cohen-Cahn, Emerald O'Hanrahan, Tessa Nicholson, Anna Maxwell Martin and Piers Wehner.

Producer: Beaty Rubens.