Quentin Letts first night reviewQuentin Letts10/06/2011Daily MailTHE GOVERNMENT INSPECTORBy Nikolai Gogol in a new vriseon by David Harrower, Young VicACTOR of the week was Simon Muller, who was about to open in the Young Vic's GovernmentInspector when he had a fall and hurt his leg.Undeterred, Mr Muller whistled up a pair of crutches and performed Wednesday's finalpreview with his sticks.That it worked is perhaps because this production is so surreal. Mr Muller's fellowactors even managed to work in some crutch-related jokes.Director Richard Jones and adaptor David Harrower throw an operatic wildness at NikolaiGogol's 19th century comedy.The audience enters the auditorium via the set, passing two characters playing cardsand another peeling potatoes. Good touch.We are in provincial Russia a small town in the fold of a map' and the mayor(Julian Barratt) is a corrupt oaf. He learns that an undercover government inspectorhas arrived from St Petersburg. Yikes!A mystery visitor is duly identified in the local inn. He soon finds himself beingfeted and bribed.In this whacky, clever take on the tale, the word incognito' buzzes round the stagein stencilled lights, pestering the mayor. The set angles are like something viewedthrough distorting mirrors. The colours are crazy pinks and yellows.Mr Barratt, best known as one half of comedy duo The Mighty Boosh, does not exactly act.He loiters, uttering his lines while darting his eyes from side to side. His air ofalienation gives the satire a blunt, disembodied quality.The presumed inspector is played with elan by Kyle Soller, a dashing lad with a madmop of ginger curls. I suspect we will see a lot more of him.A madcap cast of village characters prostrate themselves and wave banknotes in theinspector's face.Hobbling Mr Muller plays a twitchy schoolmaster. Amanda Lawrence is terrific as amoustachoied postmaster (she looks like Field Marshal Montgomery). Steven Beard isa splendidly pervy German doctor.The humour is as heavy as the heat in the auditorium. Perhaps that is why I foundmyself drifting late in the first half. The cartoon style kills any topical allusionsto modern Britain. It might benefit from some of that.But as the wit becomes increasingly savage, portraying the rottenness of the mayor'sregime, the show acquires a momentum that is hard to resist.Copyright Daily Mail newspaper, all rights reserved.
