I am sure no one intended it, but to have the press night of this play fall on the day of the English local government elections was a piquant touch. For there is no more biting indictment of the venality and pettiness of provincial governance than this classic Slav satire of 1836. But it was also a relief to be able to make the ironic comparisons for oneself rather than have them hammered home by a clumsy production updating . In setting and costumes we were firmly in period, and director Greg Doran deserves a lot of credit for playing it straight, and trusting to the power and craft of the original.
The essential conceit in Gogol’s play (here in a sprightly adaptation by Phil Porter) revolves around mistaken identity. Word reaches the mayor that an inspector from St Petersburg is arriving to scrutinise the town’s affairs. Given the incompetence and corruption of all layers of authority, panic ensues and they collectively assume a minor official staying at the inn on his uppers is the said inspector. He and his servant cannot believe their luck, and milk the town for all they are worth before gradually the truth emerges. There is plenty of opportunity for visual slapstick and busy crowd scenes here, which is all very amusing, but somewhat at the expense of satirical bite and edge.
Designer Francis O’Connor has gone for a version of realism with surrealist touches. He takes full advantage of the thrust stage at the Festival Theatre to introduce different residential levels and then decorates the periphery with onion domes and rooftops to suggest the broader village landscape together with exploding filing cabinets to symbolise the chaotic and venal administration presided over by the mayor. There are particular lovely mouldings and stand-out furniture items that embody fussy Biedermeier taste, and the precise period costumes are both colourful and tastelessly showy, especially for the women. One of those rare cases where ‘more is more’, to symbolise the community’s needy desire to impress.
This is a large cast, so inevitably I can only highlight a few stand-out performances. In the lead of role of Khlestakov Tom Rosenthal is charming and debonair, with the bravura comic timing you would expect from his background. In the climactic scene before the interval I would have preferred a more hectic, manic pace, but it was still an impressive verbal and dramatic feat. He is well matched by Lloyd Hutchinson as the mayor, whose inventive deceptions mirror those of the putative inspector. This is a performance of guile and authority. Similar guile is on offer from Nick Haverson, as the Sancho-Panza like servant, Osip, determined to make the most of his abrupt change of fortune. There is also some lovely detailed work from Paul Rider and Miltos Yerolemou as the quarrelsome but inseparable Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky. On the distaff side, Sylvestra Le Touzel channels Mrs Slocombe to impressive effect, and Laurie Ogden expresses plausible frustration and rivalry with her overbearing mother.
Overall, this is a highly entertaining evening with lavish production values and impressively stylish; but it lacks the darker undertow of social criticism that you find in that other great morality play that revolves around mistaken external scrutiny of culpable weakness, namely, ‘An Inspector Calls.’
Nikolai Gogol adapted by Phil Porter
Director: Greg Doran
Cast includes: Nick Haverson, Lloyd Hutchinson, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Laurie Ogden, Paul Rider, Tom Rosenthal, Miltos Yerolemou
Until 24 May 2025
2 hrs 25 mins with interval
Photo Credit: Ellie Kurttz