Review | Friday Night Dinner's Tom Rosenthal 'as funny onstage as on the telly' in Chichester Festival Theatre's The Government Inspector

Tom Rosenthal (Khlestakov) with Lloyd-Hutchinson (The-Mayor) in The Government Inspector at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo by Ellie Kurttz

It’s a pleasure to be back at the Chichester Festival Theatre for the start of its 2025 season.

Up first is The Government Inspector, an 1836 comedy by Nikolai Gogol, brought to life by former RSC artistic director Gregory Doran in his directorial debut.

Set in a provincial town in Russia, it paints a vivid picture of the boisterous characters who make up its bureaucracy: the mayor, the judge, the head of schools – and their absurd attempts to cover their corrupt ways.

The Government has caught wind of the brutish mayor’s financial indiscretions and cruel treatment of the townsfolk, so they send an inspector to town to root out the bad seeds.

It is at this point the farce really begins.

Due to a misinterpretation by the bumbling duo Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, a rakish but low-ranking member of the bourgeoisie who is stuck in this backwater town when his funds dry up is mistaken for said inspector.

Before he knows it, civil servant Khlestakov is being treated like royalty as officials try to curry favour – and it doesn’t take him long to exploit this.

Friday Night Dinner’s Tom Rosenthal plays the lazy libertine and proves to be just as funny onstage as he is on the telly.

The energy is high-octane from the get-go, with plenty of physical comedy – including a cleverly collapsing bed when one half of the aforementioned duo falls through a skylight.

In this new adaptation by Phil Porter, the source material is given a distinctly modern flair, with a knowing line about how Russia would never invade Ukraine and actors regularly breaking the fourth wall.

It was used to good effect when the incensed mayor, having just found out he had married off his ‘frisky little foal’ of a daughter to a fraudster, reacts to the audiences’ laughter with the cutting retort: ‘you’re laughing at yourselves’.

He’s right; like all good satire, this holds up a mirror to society, particularly what happens when the corrupt have power.

The dark undercurrent running through the piece comes to a head when the oppressed shopkeepers are hauled in chains in front of the mayor, drunk on power with the thought of the status his new ‘son-in-law’ could bestow on him.

While Lloyd Hutchinson does a good job of capturing the ludicrousness of the autocrat, my favourite performances came from Miltos Yerolemou and Paul Rider as Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, bickering with each other like an old married couple.

A winning start to the 2025 season.

Until May 24.

James Butler