Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It’s nearly 200 years since Nikolai Gogol’s tart political satire bounced on to stage, but it’s easy to see why Gregory Doran has revived it in 2025. Gogol, who was born in Sorochyntsi, central Ukraine, presents us with an assortment of corrupt Russian government officials taken in by an imposter on the make.One wonders what the playwright would make of the political scene today. Doran and translator Phil Porter keep the action firmly in the early 19th century, however, allowing contemporary resonances to seep out. That’s a smart decision. But the resulting production, though peppered with enjoyable moments and performances, strains somewhat for effect.The action unfolds in a sleepy provincial backwater, evoked in chocolate-box style by Francis O’Connor’s pretty, ornate set. News that an undercover inspector from St Petersburg is coming to town coincides with the arrival of Khlestakov, a mysterious stranger who has holed up in a local hostelry. An inspection seems imminent and, given that business as usual for the town involves bribes, blackmail and brutality, the ramshackle crew of officials assembled for an emergency meeting are suddenly keen to hide their tracks.The mayor (Lloyd Hutchinson, splendidly pompous and preposterous) opts for a charm offensive and scurries off to the inn where Khlestakov — who is in fact a lowly clerk and wastrel — is sequestered in squalor, griping about the landlord’s refusal to give him credit and abusing his long-suffering servant Osip (Nick Haverson). When the mayor turns up to grovel, Khlestakov spots a chance to feather his nest.Soon he is drunkenly lording it over everyone, pocketing the biggest bribes he can muster, trying his luck with the mayor’s opinionated wife (Sylvestra Le Touzel) and browbeaten daughter (Laurie Ogden) and fleecing the impoverished townsfolk. Tom Rosenthal brings elastic physicality and a lovely audience rapport to this blithely venal and self-centred rascal.Doran, former artistic director at the RSC, has spent decades wrangling with Shakespeare’s various power-hungry schemers, and clearly relishes the chance to visit similar territory in a comic vein. His production is propelled by manic energy, laced with slapstick and peopled by larger-than-life buffoons — there’s a particularly nice double act from Miltos Yerolemou and Paul Rider as near interchangeable busybodies Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky.All this is to the good — Gogol is among many writers who have smuggled caustic political critique on to stage in the guise of farce. But underneath the play’s comic frenzy, he touches on some shocking cruelty and corruption. We rarely feel the full bite of that here. There’s a strenuous, overcooked feel to some of the comedy too, as if the cast felt the need to assure us that it is indeed funny, rather than allowing the humour to arise from a genuinely felt predicament.Porter’s saltily colloquial text has some great lines — “I am, to a greater or lesser extent, married” — and there are some laugh-out-loud moments. But compared with, say, Daniel Raggett’s blistering recent revival of Accidental Death of an Anarchist, it all feels a bit flat.★★★☆☆To May 24, cft.org.uk
