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.