Chichester: Nick Haverson is back as the lowliest of the low in corruption satire

Famously it’s a tale of corruption… and mistaken identity. The bureaucrats in a remote provincial town are panicking. Word has gone round that a bigwig government inspector is heading their way. And things are far from ideal: for a start, the hospital’s hopeless, the post office has gone to pot, and the streets are filthy. So when they discover the inspector is already staying at the inn, incognito, the whole town lavishes flattering attention on him. This suits ‘the inspector’ just fine since in reality he’s a lowly and broke government pen-pusher, nursing extravagant fantasies of fame and fortune…

Nick plays Osip, servant to Khlestakov, the fake inspector, and as Nick says it's very much a love-hate relationship: “The main character is pretty lowly and he has got a servant so you can imagine just how lowly I am. But I'm the only person who knows throughout the whole play about the fact that this is all a case of mistaken identity and I'm saying to him ‘Come on, it's about time we get out of here before you get rumbled!’ But Khlestakov doesn't want to. He just wants to take as many bribes as he possibly can.

“It's all hilarious but actually my character is very grave. He's really not a happy chappie, and he's just constantly saying that they need to get out of there. He's always thinking ‘This is going to end in another disaster.’ It has happened before. His master keeps getting mistaken by people and is constantly taking bribes. My character just knows that it's not going to end well. He's really in disbelief that it's happening. It's a love hate relationship. He hates him and berates him and yet he stays with him. And I think it's because there is a kind of excitement. He enjoys St Petersburg and all that it offers. He enjoys living in a big city and has his own ideas above his station.”

As Nick says, it's a play that asks what would you do if you found a £5 note at a railway station. Would you hand it in or would you just put it in your pocket? In this play it is the pocket option that wins.

“It’s that mentality. There is an oppressive culture and even the people that are oppressed are still trying to take bribes themselves. It's a vicious circle, and there's just something about human nature. People always try to get something for nothing if they can!”

Nick was previously at Chichester Festival Theatre a few years ago in Love’s Labour’s Lost/Much Ado About Nothing: “It was brilliant. We had a really great time and we're all still in touch with each other whenever we can. I think it worked because it was always so clearly spoken by the leads. I think the storytelling was so clear and so ideal. Our director was very good at keeping everything precise and I think the fact that it was set at the end of the Edwardian era, the end of the First World War, just gave it so much pathos and resonance.”