Opening the Chichester Festival Theatre season this year will be The Government Inspector on the main-house stage – a show last here 20 years ago with Alistair McGowan in the main role.

And as Chichester Festival Theatre artistic director Justin Audibert says, it remains one of the great comic masterpieces. This time it will be actor and comedian Tom Rosenthal (Friday Night Dinner, Plebs, Manhood) leading the cast as Khlestakov.

“Friday Night Dinner is one of my all-time favourite shows,” says Justin. “Tom Rosenthal has such brilliant comic ability. He's just got funny, funny bones and I can't wait to see what he does on the Festival Theatre stage. Like Alistair McGowan it needs that stand-up role and it's going to be a great big fun night out.”

One of the lessons learned from last year, Justin says, is that you need comedy in that tricky opening-play slot on the Festival Theatre stage: “It just feels key that we open with such a joyful celebration.”

The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, directed by Gregory Doran, will run from April 25-May 24. Gogol’s 19th century satire of skulduggery, mistaken identity and human absurdity will spiral into dizzying levels of comic hysteria in Phil Porter’s new version, Justin promises.

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; the streets are filthy; and the mayor and the judge are keen to brush their own indiscretions under the nearest carpet.

So when they discover that 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…

“Looking out at the world I wanted a comedy and a satire that had an international feel but also felt so relatable,” Justin says. “We have lived through an era of corruption and maybe we are still living in an era of corruption and it's great to see it on the stage... though maybe less good when you are living through it in real life! But the way Gogol constructs it is fantastic. It just keeps on ramping up.”

Tickets from £10: cft.org.uk or 01243 781312. Prologue: 9,000 £5 tickets are available for 16-30 year-olds across all Festival 2025 productions; sign up for free at cft.org.uk/prologue.

Full season coming up:

• Tom Rosenthal in The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, a new adaptation by Phil Porter, directed by Gregory Doran, April 25-May 24, Festival Theatre.

• Mark Addy and Jenna Russell in The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry, a new musical adapted by Rachel Joyce from her own multi million-selling novel, directed by Katy Rudd, May 5-June 14, Minerva Theatre.

• Natalie Dormer in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, a new adaptation by Phillip Breen, directed by Phillip Breen, June 7-28, Festival Theatre.

Beverley Knight in Marie And Rosetta by George Brant, directed by Monique Touko a co-production with Rose Theatre and ETT, June 25-July 26, Minerva Theatre.

• Top Hat, music & lyrics by Irving Berlin, based on RKO's Motion Picture, adapted for the stage by Matthew White & Howard Jacques, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, July 14-September 6, Festival Theatre.

• Choir by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, directed by Hannah Joss, August 2-30, Minerva Theatre.

• Giles Terera in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, directed by Justin Audibert, September 6-October 4, Minerva Theatre.

• William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies, adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams, directed by Anthony Lau, September 19-October 11, Festival Theatre.

• Safe Space by Jamie Bogyo, directed by Roy Alexander Weise, October 11-November 8, Minerva Theatre.

• Stiles and Drewe’s The Three Little Pigs, music by George Stiles, book and lyrics by Anthony Drewe, a co-production with Unicorn Theatre, December 6-28, Minerva Theatre.

• A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig, adapted for the stage by Philip Wilson, music by Tom Brady, lyrics by Philip Wilson and Tom Brady, directed by Dale Rooks, performed by Chichester Festival Youth Theatre in their 40th anniversary year, December 15-31.