Kings Theatre,
Edinburgh
3 stars
When Communicado
Theatre Company toured Adrian Mitchell's adaptation of Gogol's satire
of small-town corruption in 2011, it's tale of back-handers, bungs
and out and out bribes in high places looked all too timely. Two
years on, and Gerry Mulgrew's scaled up revival, a co-production
between Communicado and Aberystwyth Arts Centre, looks more pertinent
than ever. This is the case even as Mulgrew's knockabout ensemble put
style above polemic, making the self-serving clique who get wind that
their antics are under investigation by a mysterious inspector appear
even more ridiculous.
Equally ridiculous is
Khlestakov, the penniless cad who the long, the short and the tall of
the town presume to be the inspector, simply because he has the
upper-crust swagger of the St Petersburg set, albeit without the cash
to back it up. As played here by Oliver Lavery, Khlestakov is a
feckless fop, whose own pomp woos the town-folk into catering for his
every whim, so dazzled are they by his perceived power.
Mulgrew's use of a
mixed Scots/Welsh cast for his fresh look at the play lends a
pleasing musicality to Mitchell's text, while the sense of physical
scale accentuates its absurdity on designer Jessica Brettle's
semi-circular network of revolving doors. If the first half needs
cranking up a tad if it's to truly catch comedic fire on a big stage,
the second half succeeds in spades as all line up in turn to pay
homage to Khlestakov. There's some fine-tuned comic interplay between
Lavery and Kate Quinnell as the governor’s twitty daughter before
Khlestakov does a runner, leaving the town even more financially and
morally bankrupt than it was before.
The Herald, March 28th 2013
ends
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