ROXANA Silbert wants to change modern theatre with her new production of The Government Inspector, a tall order maybe, but she believes Nikolai Gogol classic is the ideal vehicle to promote that change.

“I've always loved The Government Inspector; most theatre directors love it because it’s brilliantly written and crafted,” says the director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre production. “It's been on my list of plays I've wanted to direct and this was the perfect opportunity.”

Perfect because this is the first stage in an exciting new project called Ramps On The Moon, whose debut tour visits the West Yorkshire Playhouse, in Leeds, from tomorrow until April 30.

Bringing together a consortium of six regional theatres working alongside Graeae Theatre Company, which champions diversity in performance, the initiative will see the creation of a series of shows with a fully integrated cast of disabled and non-disabled actors that will tour all the venues.

These shows must be the best they can be, insists Roxana, Birmingham Repertory Theatre's artistic director. "I really wanted to produce and direct a really good version of The Government Inspector,” she says. “I wanted to gather around me a brilliant group of actors and put them in a brilliant play, and this plays allows your individuality to shine because it needs eccentricity but it doesn’t need explanation.

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Kiruna Stamell in The Government Inspector. Picture: Robert Day

"The world of this play is quite eccentric and the people in it are eccentric. So the diversity of the casting makes the play even better. You don’t have to explain a deaf judge or the signers being integrated because the eccentricity of the play allows it.”

Roxana believes that now is the ideal time to resurrect Gogol's satirical 19th century play, which tells the tale of a small town in Russia run on corruption. When the Mayor learns a government inspector is to make a visit, he is determined that the official will not discover the truth.

"The Government Inspector is a masterpiece and a play I’ve always wanted to direct," she says. "It’s a great satire about the personal and political ramifications of corruption in a world where everyone has lost their moral compass. David Harrower’s excellent adaptation is fresh and modern and we are loving finding the theatrical possibilities opened up by putting accessible theatre at the heart of the production.”

In a way, suggests Roxana, the play is timeless because it explores corruption and corruption is timeless. "But also Gogol is really investigating corruption of the soul. It’s about how all of these characters in the play know they are not authentic," she says.

"They all have a terrible sense of the person they would like to have been. The tension is between who they turned out to be and who they could have been. So it’s about the corrupt soul creating the corrupt society and I think that’s so fascinating.

“And that’s a real tension in society today because at the same time as people are trying to be authentic by doing yoga or drinking juices, they’re paying to have their faces carved up and refusing to age. Society is very aspirational economically and socially, so it’s a very interesting time in what it means to be authentic.”

Directing such a diverse cast and ensuring full integration has not been without its challenges. “It has been an enormous learning process,” says Roxana. “There are also things that constantly take you by surprise, for example there’s a whole scene where someone is listening at the door and then you realise that because the actor is deaf, he wouldn’t be listening at the door.

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Robin Morrissey and Michael Keane in The Government Inspector. Picture: Robert Day

“These are all little details but you suddenly hit them because you don’t have a sense of people’s limitations in that rehearsal room; you only have a sense of their endless possibilities, and you just suddenly trip yourself up.

“What has been difficult is that I feel like I’m directing three shows. I’m directing a play for the mainstream audiences; I’m directing a play for deaf and hearing-impaired audiences and I’m directing a show for blind and visually impaired audiences. And I’m trying to make the experience for each of those audiences as full as each other."

This is a difficult task, Roxana admits. "The show needs to feel as integrated as possible, so that if you come and see it as any type of audience you feel you are getting one show, and what those different components do is add to the production and not confuse it," she says.

"That’s the challenge of the directing job in this show. But I do have enormous support from other team members who have specialist skills and knowledge. They have really helped. And when it works it makes everything very alive and present.”

Ramps On The Moon resulted from the tour of an integrated production of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera in 2014. Created by Graeae and the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, the production toured to Birmingham, Nottingham and Leeds and highlighted just what was possible.

“The idea of doing large main house-integrated shows and trying to make them the norm was born out of the conversations around that show and when we started talking about it, there were some theatres who really wanted to do it and came on board,” Roxana recalls.

“For a long time, as an industry, we haven’t paid enough attention to including deaf and disabled actors into the mainstream. It’s beginning to happen and in ten years’ time I hope the industry will be unrecognisable in that respect. I’m really proud that we are among the first to be doing it. The talent is there because companies like Graeae have been developing this talent for a long time, it’s really just about opening the doors.”

Roxana has huge ambitions for the project. “We're very committed as a consortium to making it work because we believe in the ideology of it. There will be at least three productions and we're hoping to extend that. But also we hope it will change the landscape of theatre so it won’t need to be an initiative; it will just be happening across the country.”

The Government Inspector, presented by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, April 20 to 30. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk

By Diane Parkes and Charles Hutchinson