Cirrus@Austlit

'Nikolai Gogol was a nutcase. Bonkers. And in between bouts of nuttiness he just happened to write what are unquestionably the two funniest plays of the nineteenth century: The Diary of a Madman and The Government Inspector. Ever since then, actors and directors have been using his plays as a leaping off point for their own journeys into theatrical madness.

'Now, a new generation of comic geniuses sink their teeth into The Government Inspector. Under the direction of the ever-inventive Simon Stone, this ridiculous, laugh-out-loud comedy will take a mad-cap turn toward twenty-first century Australia. It may not entirely resemble the play Gogol wrote in 1836, but this new The Government Inspector is an implausible masterpiece for our implausible times.'