What an astonishing spectacle met the eye as the curtain rose for the second Bartholomew Players 50th anniversary production! Expecting the drab muted colours of the backwoods nineteenth century Russian location in which Gogol’s play was originally set, I was jolted into a reappraisal of what lay ahead, by interior walls painted a particularly nauseous shade of bright green, and a character in a large Santa-style gown with a towering red wig boasting the sort of ribbons and bows that Cinderella’s Ugly Sister would be proud of.
Gogol’s groundbreaking play has inspired translations and adaptations in languages and cultures across the world, including film, opera and dance productions. It originated from an incident of mistaken identity experienced by Gogol’s friend Pushkin, providing a basis on which Gogol develops satirical and tragi-comic themes so universal, timeless and arresting, its appeal has spread internationally and endured over almost two centuries.
Director Gareth Hammond has chosen the version adapted by Philip Goulding, set in small-town Victorian England. The whole style of the production is Larger than Life. Everything about the cast is crazily colourful – from the characters they portray, to the costumes they sport.
The story is simple: when a lazy low-level civil servant from the capital (Nick Smith) is unable to travel on from a small provincial inn, having lost all his money at cards, the local townspeople assume he is the Government Inspector they have been expecting, and that he is surreptitiously collating reports on the way they are managing – or, rather, mismanaging – their responsibilities. A panic ensues, in which the deluded citizens attempt to ingratiate themselves with him; he responds by encouraging the delusion and milking them for all he can get.
It is a fabulously entertaining production. The cast really bring their caricatured characters to life, and the script is full of hilarious lines, puns and double-entendres. Notable performances abound, but some of the most memorable are the double acts. I loved Mr and Mrs Robson, with the credible chemistry of the squabbling long-married couple, each struggling for dominance and elbowing each other out of the way, in a piece of faultlessly fluid physical theatre. The pair who really stole the show were the competitive mother-and-daughter combo of Anna (Elaine Leggett) and Maria (Imogen Tingle) who deserve a medal for their long-distance marathon: maintaining a protracted crescendo of ever-increasingly outrageous flirtation with the “Inspector”, from the batting of eyelids and the coy sideways glances, to an orgy of gasps and giggles and shivers and shudders of bosom-heaving excitement, as his over-active imagination drives him to fabricate ever taller stories of self-glamorisation.
The Government Inspector depicts a world of corruption and self-delusion – there is no-one in it unwilling to give or receive a back-hander of some sort – but it is as watchable and as entertaining as any pantomime.
I believe Friday and Saturday night performances are already sold out, but it is certainly worth making the 30 minute trip* to Eynsham to see it on Wednesday or Thursday!
*There is a frequent bus service from