Ranjit Bolt's 1992 translation of Molière's play about religious conman Tartuffe, who infiltrates the home of the gullible wealthy Orgon, is not at all well behaved. It is like a naughty child who climbs on to the roof and sits there spouting bawdy language. It revels in its own cheeky vulgarity as it mixes the lewd with the shrewd. It gets over-excited by its own cleverness, almost falls over and then recovers itself.
There was a time when translators were meek and self-effacing. Now they stamp their own authority all over someone else's work. Molière, if he were still around to complain, might mind a great deal at this creative vandalism, but I can't say that I do. Piety has never been quite such fun. It is refreshingly entertaining, particularly when Bolt leaves a gap in the rhyme so that you can fill in the blank with your own dirty thought.
It would be better still if Jonathan Munby's production had a little more style and swagger of its own. It is plain and serviceable but comes into its own in the scene in which Adrian Schiller's puritan-faced Tartuffe reveals his lascivious nature in the way he eats profiteroles, and another in which he chases Orgon's wife around the table. But sometimes it feels as if the irregular rhyming couplets are running away with the cast, rather than the other way round, leading to some over-egged performances.
Given the times in which we live, Munby has also missed a trick by failing to give a darker edge to this great anti-fundamentalist comedy that points up the dangers of falling prey to religious fanaticism.
But this Molière makeover is an enjoyable romp, and there are some very neat performances, particularly from Patricia Gannon, whose straight-talking maid, Dorine, sniffs out hypocrisy like a beagle.
· Until March 18. Then touring. Box office: 01635 46044.
