Cuts had to be made to the 1985 script of The Government Inspector to condense the running time to approximately one and a half hours. Director Cynthia Marsh therefore introduced the use of mime in order to convey the essential meaning yet strengthen the farcical tone of several scenes.
The resetting of the play to the 1980s meant that the action was also relocated to an unspecified country, due to the concern that if the setting remained in Russia, then the play would appear too politically oriented and heavily anti-Soviet. References to St Petersburg were therefore changed to “the capital.”
Top right: (back row, from left to right) Diane Williams (Hospital Manageress, Zemlyanika); Trevor Smith (the Mayor); Vanessa Piggot(Avdotya, the Mayor’s Cleaner); Philip Mitchell (Hotel Waiter); Fiona Manns (Mayor’s Secretary, Masha); Eva Burek (Dobchinskaya) and Bob Pearn(Dobchinsky). Front row: Andrea Thomas (Anna Andreyevna, the Mayor’s wife); Melanie Sefton (Maria Antonovna, the Mayor’s daughter) and Fiona Wills (Postmistress Shpyokina).
Bottom right: (from left to right) Melanie Sefton; Andrea Thomas; Jonathan Bastable (Khlestakov); Trevor Smith; Simone Osborn (Dr Gibner); Bob Pearn and Eva Burek.