Review: THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR, Chichester Festival Theatre
Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz
The 2025 Chichester Festival Theatre season opens with the world premiere of a new adaptation of Nikolai Gogol‘s 1836 play, The Government Inspector, and as we take our seats, we are immediately delighted to see that it remains set in Russia in that year. As designer Francis O’Connor refreshingly notes in the programme: “people can extrapolate and work out the modern interpretations without it being a contemporary production”. How often we see classic plays reset in a modern era just to be different, or perhaps to spoon feed the audiences with a particular current point of view . Part of the joy of seeing classic plays is that, as well as being entertained by the quality of the writing, we can be provoked into drawing our own interpretations to take back to the outside world . Indeed, early on adapter Phil Porter can’t resist an easy laugh when a character says, “Russia would never do a thing like that”, all the more poignant as Gogol was a Ukrainian, claimed by Moscow as a Russian.
The play invites comparisons with the modern day throughout. Corrupt politicians and judges, overcrowded hospitals with sharing beds, failing schools and an unreliable postal service, and a divided society between the haves and the have nots. It is perfect territory for a satirical comedy and yet the production is strangely unfunny and laboured. The essence of a great farce is a sharp script with a plot that moves fast, direction that is precise and controlled as if what is happening is realistic, and a cast with great comic timing and nuanced reactions. We get none of that subtlety here, it is played full on, over the top, for laughs with a curious mix of regional exaggerated accents and some knock about physical business. And it ends with the cast held in the most odd freeze frame interminable finale as if caught in the spotlight and awaiting our applause.
The plot is very simple; the corrupt officials of a provincial Russian town who abuse and exploit their families and townsfolk believe that a Government Inspector has secretly arrived in their town to check up on them. They mistake Khlestakov, a civil servant travelling to see his family (played by Tom Rosenthal) as that man and seek to cover up their misdemeanours by bribes and platitudes to get a good report to Moscow. We can see that they are mistaken and their efforts in a series of very similar duologues are tiresome. Characters break the fourth wall often but without the same engagement and charm as when Fagan did so last year at this venue in Oliver! The Mayor does at least share with us towards the end that it all “might seem farfetched” to put before an audience.
Two minor characters do emerge with some credit, Miltos Yerolemou and Paul Rider as Bobchinksy and Dobchinksy, who make a good comical double act, mirroring each other’s words and actions in some well executed business. To complicate matters the “Inspector” seeks to woo either (he is not bothered which) the Mayor’s wife or daughter. Sylvestra Le Touzal has great fun as Anna, the wife, although her accent makes her sound like Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served? and Laurie Ogden simpers as Marya.
Francis O’Connor’s set design sits well on Chichester’s large thrust stage for the Mayor’s office at his home where most of the action is set, and is evocative of Russian domed buildings of the period. However, in the only other scene at the Inspector’s lodging, a tiny truck is wheeled centre stage which, maybe deliberately, is far too small for the four actors in the scene but simply constricts and inhibits the comedy. Each scene change is accompanied by some pleasant unamplified Russian music played on stage by three musicians.
The original play certainly has merit in revival and staging for today but watching it, you yearn for the comic writing and performances of the Fawlty Towers Hotel Inspector or Richard Bean’s brilliant reinvention of the 1743 play A Servant of Two Masters, as One Man, Two Guvnors, or a performer of the standing of Rik Mayall who played the role in the 1985 National Theatre production of the title. There are some amusing moments but somehow the comedy gets lost or muted on the thrust stage and it never takes off or sweeps you along. It leaves us wondering that, in this case, they might have been better updating it to the modern day to have more fun with the analogies, especially with a press night on a tumultuous Local Election day!
** Two stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
The Government Inspector plays at Chichester Festival Theatre until 24 May, with further info here.