Tag Archives: Emma Chapman

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

★★★★

Chichester Festival Theatre

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

Chichester Festival Theatre

★★★★

“brims with swearing, colloquialisms, double entendres, and joyful absurdity”

Nikolai Gogol’s razor-sharp satire The Government Inspector gets a bawdy and riotous reimagining in this new adaptation by Phil Porter, directed with pantomimic glee by Gregory Doran in his Chichester debut. Fuelled by farcical energy, the production is packed with verbal wit and physical comedy that rarely misses a beat.

The plot is deceptively simple: a small, corrupt provincial town panics at news that a government inspector is due to arrive incognito. When they mistake a feckless young civil servant for the feared official, chaos ensues. Enter Tom Rosenthal as Khlestakov, the supposed inspector, who quickly realises he can exploit the town’s credulous officials – a rollicking parade of grotesques, each more deluded than the last – for money, food, flattery, and more.

Rosenthal, best known for Friday Night Dinner and Plebs, brings his trademark hapless charm to Khlestakov, a delightfully louche fantasist revelling in the absurd power thrust upon him. In between extracting money, goods, and favours, he sets about seducing the Mayor’s wife (Sylvestra Le Touzel) – gloriously ridiculous, flirtatious, and determined to outshine her own daughter – and the daughter herself (Laurie Ogden), whose wide-eyed naïvety is tinged with a quiet desperation to be noticed. Ideally, he’d have both.

On first meeting Khlestakov in his sleazy accommodation, he seems somewhat subdued – especially compared with the cavalcade of comic officials who dominate early on with scene-stealing flourishes. But Rosenthal’s performance builds into a compelling piece of comic buffoonery – especially in a hilariously drunken return to the Mayor’s house after a boozy lunch. He is ably supported by Nick Haverson as Osip, his sardonic, long-suffering manservant.

Lloyd Hutchinson gives a standout performance as the morally bankrupt Mayor, his sweaty desperation rendered with delicious physicality. He’s joined by a motley crew of officials, each scrambling to ingratiate themselves and slip the impostor a few hundred roubles. There are strong comic turns throughout: Joe Dixon’s pompous Judge, whose knees keep giving way; Christopher Middleton’s cigar-fumbling Head of Schools; Oscar Pearce’s gleefully self-serving Charity Commissioner, all too happy to reveal the Mayor’s misdeeds; and Reuben Johnson’s jittery Postmaster. Miltos Yerolemou and Paul Rider are particularly entertaining as Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky – a Tweedledum-and-Tweedledee pair of nosy busybodies, obsessed with their own imagined importance.

These absurd officials are starkly contrasted with the town’s merchants, who visit the supposed inspector seeking justice, only to be swindled again. Leigh Quinn’s Sergeant’s Widow delivers a quietly devastating moment as she recounts being publicly beaten, revealing the scars on her back. It’s a grim reminder that beneath the foolery lie real-world consequences.

Porter’s script is sprightly and accessible, injecting Gogol’s 19th-century satire with contemporary irreverence. It brims with swearing, colloquialisms, double entendres, and joyful absurdity. Standout lines include Khlestakov describing the Mayor’s wife as a “randy old honey badger” and boasting he has “a pie in every finger” – playful, outrageous, and unexpectedly sharp.

The opening scene hints at something more substantial. The Mayor, pondering why St Petersburg might be sending a government inspector to their backwater, dismisses the idea of war – confidently assuring his colleagues that Russia would never be interested in such a remote place. It’s a fleeting but pointed allusion to contemporary geopolitics and a knowing nod to Gogol’s Ukrainian identity (acknowledged in the programme). While this moment garners a chuckle, such modern resonance is quickly left behind, as the production commits more fully to good-natured farce than to drawing serious parallels with 21st-century politics.

The production embraces the meta-theatricality woven into Gogol’s text. The characters’ frantic need to impress is echoed in the actors’ heightened delivery, exaggerated movement (thanks to movement director Mike Ashcroft), and frequent breaking of the fourth wall. The final “frozen tableau” – the moment of stunned silence when the real inspector is announced – is held just long enough to become hilariously awkward, prompting uneasy titters and a ripple of recognition.

Francis O’Connor’s set design captures a world teetering between grandeur and decay. The Mayor’s office-turned-drawing-room features filing cabinets bursting with paper and oversized doors that suggest delusions of grandeur. The inn’s squalid room, with its grimy skylight and claustrophobic scale, offers a stark contrast – and provides an excellent setup for a well-executed physical comedy. O’Connor’s costumes are a visual feast: lavish, absurd, and sharply attuned to each character’s vanity and social pretensions, particularly in the cases of the Mayor’s preening wife and posturing daughter.

Doran keeps the whole machine ticking with precision. The pace never flags. This is a lively and well-crafted revival that entertains with gusto. While it flirts with deeper contemporary parallels through its satirical edge, it ultimately settles for broad, enjoyable farce – and a very enjoyable one it is.



THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

Chichester Festival Theatre

Reviewed on 1st May 2025

by Ellen Cheshire

Photography by Ellie Kurttz

 

 

 


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE | ★★★½ | January 2025
REDLANDS | ★★★★ | September 2024

 

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

SELF-RAISING

★★★★★

Soho Theatre

SELF-RAISING at the Soho Theatre

★★★★★

“inclusive theatre at its finest, it is warm and funny as well as being shocking and moving”

Jenny Sealey bursts onto stage with frankness and with warmth in this one-woman autobiographical show.

Sealey is deaf, and much of the show explores her experiences growing up in a hearing world. Certainly, the crafting of the show, which uses on screen sur titles and weaves in Jeni Draper, Sealey’s ‘terp’ (on stage interpreter) is consciously, and beautifully inclusive. However, to view the play as purely about deafness would be to box it in, and ignore the poignant and gripping family drama which Sealey unfolds.

Sealey, along with co-writer Mike Kenny and director Lee Lyford create an on-stage world which feels comforting, honest and genuine. Some of this comes from Sealey herself, who is charismatic and witty. Everyone in the audience wants to be her friend. But there are also more technical elements. It is nothing new to see an on-stage interpreter, but the way she is used in this production feels fresh and unusual. She is introduced and included in the show, her role falling somewhere between interpreter and performer. This gives Sealey a support on stage which makes her not seem so alone. This adds to the kind and safe space and allows the audience to enjoy the darker moments of the story, without fearing for the wellbeing of the performer.

Something which also builds up this very special world is that the captioning and video design is by Jonah Sealey Braverman, Jenny Sealey’s son. He is very much a part of the story, and his voice appears in voiceover throughout the play. This laid much of the creative process bare, bringing the audience along the journey with the team, and this transparent nature makes Sealey and her story even more personable and engaging. She lets us behind the curtain, and treats us, too, like family.

The set is simple, three kitchen cupboards which light up, and a projector screen. The designer Anisha Fields and lighting designer Emma Chapman execute a playful vision, with the cupboards lighting up in bold different colours.

This is inclusive theatre at its finest, it is warm and funny as well as being shocking and moving. It never feels preachy or worthy and the audience is welcomed into Sealey’s tangled web of a family drama.


SELF-RAISING at the Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 8th February 2024

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Tiu Makkonen

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

FLIP! | ★★★★ | November 2023
BOY PARTS | ★★★★ | October 2023
BROWN BOYS SWIM | ★★★½ | October 2023
STRATEGIC LOVE PLAY | ★★★★★ | September 2023
KATE | ★★★★★ | September 2023
EVE: ALL ABOUT HER | ★★★★★ | August 2023
STRING V SPITTA | ★★★★ | August 2023
BLOODY ELLE | ★★★★★ | July 2023
PETER SMITH’S DIANA | | July 2023
BRITANICK | ★★★★★ | February 2023
LE GATEAU CHOCOLAT: A NIGHT AT THE MUSICALS | ★★★★ | January 2023
WELCOME HOME | ★★★★ | January 2023

SELF-RAISING

SELF-RAISING

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