Two years ago, the Arcola brought us Molière's Tartuffe for Christmas. Now they intelligently offer us a pungent Russian equivalent: Alexander Ostrovsky's scathing 1850 satire on the gullibility and greed of Moscow's merchant class, which prompted Tsar Nicholas I to scribble across his private copy: "Printed in vain. Acting forbidden."
Like Molière, Ostrovsky suggests corruption thrives in an atmosphere of moral complacency. Bolshov, a cunning merchant, decides the best way to evade his demanding creditors is to transfer the title deeds of his shops and house to his assistant, Lazar. But Lazar, instead of handing everything back once his master has filed for bankruptcy and suffered a spell in jug, sets up in business on his own. Not only that, he marries Bolshov's brattish daughter and together they lead the Moscow equivalent of the life of Riley.
Admittedly, Ostrovsky's plot takes time to warm up and Serdar Bilis's production could do with a touch of the over-the-top exuberance of Declan Donnellan's 1986 Cheek By Jowl revival. But Nick Dear's version is stuffed with funny lines and builds to a brilliant climax.
Although Ostrovsky's play is deeply Russian in its portrait of predatory matchmakers and dipso solicitors, its vision of the dodginess of the entrepreneurial classes still rings horribly true.
Jonathan Coyne, as the merchant who eagerly clasps a vengeful viper to his bosom, has a bumptious raffishness, while Rosemary McHale lends his wife a wonderful daffiness, such as when she announces of her wildly overdressed daughter: "She looks just like a geranium, doesn't she?" And there is an excellent moment when Sally Leonard as the poutingly pretty daughter and Philip Arditti as Lazar vigorously undress each other to signify their transition from mercantile vulgarity to the world of Muscovite high society. As an antidote to seasonal mush, it makes for a biliously bracing evening.
· Until January 13. Box office: 020-7503 1646.
