In his hugely popular seasons of Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, director Andrew Hilton has shown a rare knack for communicating a story. Here, in an exquisite modern-day staging of Molière's biting comedy, he is aided by Tony Harrison's brilliant 1973 translation – updated to include references to Sarkozy, HRT, silicone implants and smartphones – and the Old Vic's return to the thrust stage, reaching right into the stalls. Both embellish Hilton's admirably clear approach to the text to enormous effect.
So too does Tom Rogers's set design, a dreamy Parisian loft apartment that's home to duplicitous social climber Célimène. It's all 60s chic and giant windows looking over the city lights and sky; a vast, transparent space for social masks to be seen and peeled away in a denouement revealed here via emails.
Simon Armstrong delivers an Alceste in creased linen and jeans, savage with his words ("Jesus wept, it's bloody rubbish!") but crumpling in horror as he observes what he calls the "pseudo-civil masquerade" of high society. Other delights in a strong cast include Lucy Black as a splendidly vicious Arsinoé, and Byron Mondahl as Oronte, with his terrible poems and impeccable political connections.
Hilton makes Molière look and feel contemporary, all surface and spin, and hovers over the details that emphasise this. There were a few opening night fluffs, and the specific lines to the audience ("Stay and watch the show," Alceste implores) feel almost superfluous in a production that already speaks so winningly to us. But everything else is spot on, terrifically watchable and charismatically done.
