Nikolai Gogol’s classic comedy THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR is presented at West Yorkshire Playhouse from 20- 30 April. The production is part of Ramps On The Moon, a collaborative network of seven theatres including West Yorkshire Playhouse, which is dedicated to increasing opportunities for disabled people. Using creatively integrated Audio Description, Captioning and British Sign Language, THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR is made fully accessible for Deaf and disabled people and staged by a company that integrates disabled and non-disabled performers and practitioners.
The news that a government inspector is due to arrive in a small Russian town sends its bureaucrats into a panicked frenzy. The Mayor’s fear is well-founded as he has been somewhat lacking in his official duties: the hospital’s a health hazard, the school’s a war zone, the soldiers don’t have trousers to march in and he never quite got around to finishing his building programme. However, a simple case of mistaken identity leads to matters spiralling out of control, exposing the hypocrisy and corruption at the heart of the town in this biting satire. Surely the only reasonable solution is bribery!
Visionary Russian writer and satirist Nikolai Gogol wrote The Government Inspector in 1836. Valdimir Nabokov described it as the greatest play in the Russian language. Although he died at just 42, Gogol’s literary influence was considerable and paved the way for writers such as Kafka and Dostoevsky. Amongst his other famous works are Dead Souls, Diary of a Madman, The Overcoat and The Nose (later made into an opera by a young Shostakovich).