This Is London 8 March 2019

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Kitty Archer, Geoffrey Lumb and Kathy Kiera Clarke in Tartuffe by Moliere in a new
version by John Donnelly.
Photos: Manuel Harlan.
TARTUFFE National Theatre
This is London, 2019, so it is
obvious that Tartuffe, a charismatic
charlatan, cheat, swindler and ne’er-dowell
is a sort of homeless person
encountered by the aristocratic Orgon in
a workman’s caff in Archway.
Orgon himself has been transposed to
Highgate, a bourgeois neighbourhood
some hundred feet geographically and,
perhaps, socially above Tartuffe’s old
haunt. He is not an aristo as such in
John Donnelly’s new version of Moliere’s
comedy, but rather a wheeler dealer
awarded a lifetime peerage by the British
government for his work, which may
have benefitted him rather more than his
compatriots.
The updates of the drama are
amusing. The general tone of Donnelly’s
prose – all acrobatic argument and
mind-boggling sophistry – is hilarious.
Key to the success of this satire is the
undying folly of mankind. How can a
highly intelligent man such as Orgon fall
victim to such a false fakir, such an
unconvincing guru as Tartuffe? Does the
man not live in Orgon’s house, eat his
food, ransack his cellar and fancy his
wife? Orgon sees none of this.
Instead, his blind faith leads him to
suspect his own family is in sore need of
a lesson. Soon Orgon hits upon the idea
of marrying off his only daughter to the
smelly and sagging Tartuffe, whilst
throwing his admittedly dopey son out
of the house and offering to usher his
second wife into the charlatan’s arms as
often as possible to prove the point that
she has nothing to fear from him.
Nothing he does makes any sense.
If the scenario is ludicrous, the stage
business is entirely fitting. No sooner is
one character discovered in the pot
plants than another has to be slammed
into the cleaning cupboard. The rather
beautiful modern sofa in Robert Jones’s
grandiose set is trampled over by leap
frogging antagonists rather more than it
is sat on. A preposterously high-backed
armchair serves only partly as throne to
its upper-class owners; it also illustrates
that diminutive guttersnipes like Tartuffe
find it hard to strike a pose where they
are dwarfed by expensive furniture.
As usual at the National, the
ensemble playing is superb. Blanche
McIntyre’s direction has every player
teetering on their own personal best.
Denis O’Hare is so convincing as
Tartuffe with his greasy ponytail,
careless proclamations and affected
‘Namaste!’s, his performance makes your
toes curl. Kevin Doyle’s Orgon is a
carefully judged incarnation of a willing
dupe – by turns pompous and pathetic,
with occasional funny turns in which his
throbbing frustrations turn him literally
puce with rage.
Comic devices aside, the evening is
no mere re-working of a literary classic.
Since Tartuffe is cast as one of the
dispossessed and his ilk – a silent
chorus of men and women in cheap
tracksuits and hoodies – come to
inhabit the rich man’s home, an
uncomfortable vein of criticism runs
through the production. By the end of
this production, will you feel bad about
social inequalities, or relieved at the
maintenance of the status quo?
Only you can decide. Enjoy!
Sue Webster
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