MARK FISHER finds continuing relevance as well as entertainment in a new production of Gogol’s classic comedy

"IT TAKES a lot of jockeys to run a one-horse town," says Andy Clark, playing Ivan Khlestakov, the man mistaken for a powerful St Petersburg official in Nikolai Gogol's hilarious satire. To cover up their corrupt behaviour, the locals have been only too willing to pay him off with cash bribes. No mean opportunist himself, Khlestakov has accepted their favours with enthusiasm.

It would be easy to regard The Government Inspector as a send-up of the provincial mindset, a metropolitan parody of small-minded people in an insignificant backwater. But, although its scale is small, the play's target is universal. The corruption Khlestakov inadvertently exposes is particularly apparent in a town where everyone knows each other, but his own arrogant and duplicitous behaviour suggests things are no more ethical in the big city.

And watching this play in 2010, it is easy to see the governor, the postmaster, the judge and the education commissioner not simply as small-town nonentities but as representative of all figures of authority, whatever the scale. Their closed little world of backhanders and kickbacks is no different to the self-serving cliques we find in today's world of bankers' bonuses and MPs' expenses scandals.

It is a weighty theme, but director Gerry Mulgrew handles it with sparkle and pizzazz in a production that has all the ensemble qualities for which his Communicado company is famous. The ten-strong cast presents a vivid sense of community, yet it is a community defined by eccentricity and difference.

Their only common purpose is to save their own skins. Even between mother and daughter there is a dog-eat-dog competitiveness. The opening song sets the tone as each singer in turn becomes bored or distracted, a metaphor for a community only reluctantly singing from the same hymn sheet.

In a production powered by polkas and waltzes that are as deranged as the hyped-up characters, John Bett plays the town governor with a funny combination of arrogance and ineffectuality, proving himself no match for Clark's wily Khlestakov when it comes to the art of the confidence trick. The ensemble joins in the fun with a set of distinctive caricatures, doing much justice to Adrian Mitchell's sparky translation and leading to an entertaining production with a topical kick in its tail.

The Government Inspector visits Mull Theatre, Tobermory (2 March); Eden Court, Inverness (4 March); Macphail Centre, Ullapool (5 March); Craignish Village Hall, Lochgilphead (7 March), Universal Hall, Findhorn (13 March).

© Mark Fisher, 2010

Links

• Communciado
• Mark Fisher’s Scottish Theatre Blog