Tartuffe

Writer: Molière, adapted by Roger McGough

Company: English Touring Theatre

Director: Gemma Bodinetz

Venue: New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich

This review first appeared on The Public Reviews website 

Colin Tierney and Joseph Alessi in Tartuffe

There’s an element of The Emperor’s New Clothes to Molière’s Tartuffe, and poet Roger McGough’s adaptation in no way dumbs down the story of the gold-digging vagrant who fools nobody but his benefactor; indeed, if anything, McGough’s treatment makes an already popular piece wholly accessible even to those who may not be familiar with the work of one of Paris’ most respected sons.

Tartuffe, or The Imposter (occasionally The Hypocrite), premiered at Versailles in 1664 and was immediately banned by the French religious authorities for openly criticising the hypocritical and materialistic attitudes of the Church. No doubt, despite being a satire, Molière’s narrative was on the heavy side but Roger McGough has stamped on it his own special brand – in the same way he would later with his re-working of Molière’s last play, The Hypochondriac – on it by returning to the original rhyming dialogue. For about fifteen minutes, this sing-song style of delivery has an air of the Panto fairy about it but the brain quickly attunes and the rhythmic measure soon becomes the norm.

Gemma Bodinetz directs her expert cast with skill and there is genuinely not one below-par performance to be identified. However, special mention must surely go to Colin Tierney, who sublimely delivers a malodorous, repulsive monster of a man in Tartuffe, and to Hiran Abeysekera as effete young beau Valere, whose death defying grand jeté across the not inconsiderable performance area is worthy of recognition in itself.

In the best comedic spirit, Molière would surely appreciate the frequent nods to ‘Allo ‘Allo as English maxims are imperfectly translated and drenched in cod French accents (“Ze ‘ogs, zay moost take to ze air”), and McGough’s delicious and shameless pulverising of poetic language, for example, rhyming “interloper” with “faux-pas”. The writer’s background as a performance poet is self-evident and the 10-strong cast are clearly relishing their time on stage, despite the dates at Ipswich’s New Wolsey Theatre being the penultimate stop on a robust tour.

It has to be suggested that the sycophantic dénouement will have the contemporary audience gagging with disbelief but, given the times and the much sought-after royal patronage, Molière cannot be pilloried for this lapse and certainly not Roger McGough. We have little sympathy for Tartuffe’s victim, Orgon, in the latter’s stupidity and perhaps even less for his family, who slide from well-heeled to no-heeled at the scratch of a pen. Bodinetz plays up Orgon’s possible romantic attraction to his charismatic foundling but, whatever else, Tartuffe’s lechery is purely aimed at the females of the house.

Ruari Murchison’s set is a gilt-edged triumph dominated by walls of tarnished mirror, which offers the vista a depth that frames the action perfectly and bounces Colin Grenfell’s glorious lighting palette around the stage and provides a credible 17th Century affluent Parisian household.

An absolute delight from start to finish.