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The Critic / The Real Inspector Hound

The Critic / The Real Inspector Hound

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2 July - 28 August
Minerva Theatre
A Double Bill
The Critic by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard
With Nicholas Le Prevost, Richard McCabe
Sean Foley, Derek Griffiths and Una Stubbs
'Chichester has another hit on its hands.'
Four Stars, The Daily Telegraph
Click here to read the full review
 
Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Tom Stoppard, two of this country’s most dazzling playwrights, writing two centuries apart, both renowned for quick-witted brilliance, are brought together in this sparkling double bill.
 
In The Critic, Sheridan gleefully satirises the theatre of his day. Mr Puff invites Sir Fretful Plagiary and the theatre critics Dangle and Sneer to a rehearsal of his latest play, the bombastic and improbable Spanish Armada. Sheridan sets about joyfully parodying the acting styles, theatrical conventions and Green Room foibles of his time with a subtle hilarity which remains sharp and fresh to this day.
 
In The Real Inspector Hound, two self-obsessed theatre critics, Moon and Birdboot, find they have blundered out of the auditorium and into the plot of the hackneyed whodunit they have come to review. Mist rolls off the marshes, telephone lines are cut, a mad murderer is on the run, and the critics’ worlds converge with the twists of the murder-mystery’s plot. As the lines between the real and the imagined, between fate and free will, become blurred, suddenly nothing is quite what it seems.

Nicholas Le Prevost (Festival 09’s The Last Cigarette; The Misanthrope, Uncle Vanya, The Wild Duck, Cranford II, Above Suspicion, Doc Martin, Wild at Heart, Shakespeare in Love) plays Dangle and Birdboot.

Richard McCabe (Festival 2010’s Bingo, Festival 05’s Scapino or the Trickster; Twelfth Night, King John, The Constant Gardener, Vanity Fair, Notting Hill, Master and Commander and Persuasion) plays Puff and Moon.

Sean Foley’s theatre credits include I am Shakespeare (Festival 07) and The Play What I Wrote and Ducktastic in the West End; Derek Griffiths was recently in the West End in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; and Una Stubbs was recently in La Cage Aux Folles at the Menier Chocolate Factory. 

Sheridan’s plays include The Rivals and The School for Scandal. Stoppard’s plays include Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Thing,Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia and Rock ‘n’ Roll.

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  • In my experience, drama critics are shy and kindly folk, ever alert, anxious to please, and wis...
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    The Daily Telegraph
  • What makes a good double bill? Contrast, I'd suggest, and, as at the National in 1985 when thes...
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    The Guardian
  • Forgive the personal note, but after a month of happily surfing the wave of theatre and its cri...
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    The Times
  • IT has often been remarked to me that spending several nights a week at the theatr...
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    The Daily Express

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