CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
The Government Inspector
Theatre Royal Stratford East/Touring
London E15
5/5
A GODFORSAKEN township in rural Russia is in a paroxysm of hysterics. A contagious rumour has spread that a government inspector is about to descend upon it.
Permeated with corruption, nepotism and brutality the ruling elite, fearing exposure, desperately prepare. Paranoia heightens on the news of a stranger checking into a drab local hotel, sparking what becomes one of the most memorable stage farces ever.
EWAN CAMERON trawls the Edinburgh fringe for new political drama
GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
MAYER WAKEFIELD recommends a musical ‘love letter’ to black power activists of the 1970s



