Tag Archives: Recommended Show

BLOOD WEDDING

★★★★

Omnibus Theatre

BLOOD WEDDING

Omnibus Theatre

★★★★

“The dynamics are beautifully conveyed by the actors in wonderfully genuine performances”

One of the most telling lines in Barney Norris’ adaptation of Lorca’s “Blood Wedding” is when the young bride, Georgie proclaims ‘I can’t remember what’s good about me’. The mix of fear and confusion in the eyes epitomises not just Nell Williams’ extraordinary performance, but also the nature of the play in which we are repeatedly taken aback by powerful moments of poignancy that burst through the comedic surface. It is a multi-layered piece that brings Lorca’s tragedy right up to date into a very relatable English rural setting. We are in a Wiltshire village on the edge of Salisbury Plain. A seemingly ordinary backwater peopled by everyday characters. Don’t be fooled. Alex Marker’s realistic set places the action around the back of a village hall, but we are somehow thrown into the world of folklore too.

Georgie and Rob (Christopher Neenan) are checking out the slightly run-down venue for their wedding reception. Rob’s mother, Helen (Alix Dunmore), is tagging along, anxious to convey her misgivings about the whole affair. The dynamics are beautifully conveyed by the actors in wonderfully genuine performances that match the natural flow of the dialogue. There is much humour, but small details and verbal tics hint at the darkness that is to come. Director Tricia Thorns is very in tune with the subtleties, often allowing the characters to look out to the audience yet still staying within their own world.

Neenan’s Rob is a delight. With his soft West Country accent, his instantly loveable personality has a simplicity and honesty that Williams’ gently mocking Georgie cannot resist. Nor can we as we root for this couple, despite the protestations of Helen and her severe abandonment complex. Dunmore can switch between caring mother and prophet of doom with remarkable ease while displaying the guilt of not imposing either with enough force. Enter Brian, the village hall’s caretaker. Initially hilarious, his role develops into that of the all-seeing sage. A remarkable performance from David Fielder that shifts into the surreal as he takes on the spiritual symbolism of Lorca’s original text, leading us dramatically towards the bloody and disturbing climax.

But before we get there, we meet Georgie’s old schoolfriend, Danni (Esme Lonsdale) and her bad-boy, Irish traveller husband Lee (Kiefer Moriarty). Lee is Georgie’s ex, and because he reappears on the day of Georgie’s wedding, we can’t help but get a sense of what is coming, whether we are familiar with Lorca’s play or not. Lonsdale gives a real strength to Danni, ably standing up to Moriarty’s slightly unconvincing menace. One of the few inconsistencies of the piece comes with the nagging disbelief that Georgie would be prepared to flee her own wedding and run off with Lee.

Fielder’s Brian tells us that ‘there is more to me than meets the eye’. A statement that can describe this play. The powerful shift in mood and style in the second act could easily have jarred, but in the hands of this talented company it is impressive, and Fielder comes to the fore with a commanding potency. The tears he has in his eyes towards the end seem genuine, and we are impelled to join him. The final epilogue, set a year after the events, is in danger of unnecessarily dragging out the ending, but it neatly sews up of the threads of the story. A tale of the fears and dreams, not just of the newly wed protagonists, but of all of us. Barney Norris has said that he wanted to build a new kind of mythology with this adaptation, particularly to the part of England where he has set the narrative. On that level he succeeds, but his play also has the gift to entertain which, in turn, is a real gift for the audience.

 



BLOOD WEDDING

Omnibus Theatre

Reviewed on 2nd May 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Phil Gammon

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE GUEST | ★★★★★ | April 2025
VANYA IS ALIVE | ★★★★ | February 2025
THE ICE AT THE END OF THE WORLD | ★★★★ | September 2024
MY LIFE AS A COWBOY | ★★★ | August 2024
HASBIAN | ★★★★ | June 2024
COMPOSITOR E | ★★★ | September 2023

BLOOD WEDDING

BLOOD WEDDING

BLOOD WEDDING

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