The news that a government inspector is due to arrive in a small Russian town sends its bureaucrats into a panicked frenzy. A simple case of mistaken identity exposes the hypocrisy and corruption at the heart of the town in this biting moral satire.

David Harrower's version of Nikolai Gogol's Government Inspector premiered at the Warwick Arts Centre in May 2011 and transferred to Young Vic, London in June.

About the Author
David Harrower's plays include Knives in Hens, Kill the Old, Torture Their Young, Dark Earth (Traverse Theatre), Presence (Royal Court) The Chrysalids (NT Connections), Blackbird (Edinburgh International Festival; West End), A Slow Air (Tron Theatre, Glasgow), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, adapted from the novel by Muriel Spark, (Donmar). Adaptations include Buchner's Woyzeck (Edinburgh Lyceum), Chekhov's Ivanov and Horvath's Tales from the Vienna Woods (National Theatre), Schiller's Mary Stuart (National Theatre of Scotland), and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, Brecht's The Good Soul of Szechuan and Gogol's The Government Inspector (Young Vic). Film credits: Una; Outlaw King. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-52), the greatest Russian novelist and playwright of the early 19th century, wrote the first realist Russian plays. He is celebrated for his novel Dead Souls (1842) and his short stories 'The Overcoat' and 'Diary of a Madman'. His satirical masterpiece Government Inspector (1836; first seen in London in 1920) was so severely attacked that he went into exile in Rome, only returning in 1848. Other plays include Marriage and Gamblers. In later life he became a religious fanatic and starved to death soon after burning the second and third parts of Dead Souls.


Book Information
ISBN 9780571280490
Author David Harrower
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 120g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 120mm * 8mm