DIRECTOR Roxana Silbert wants to to change modern theatre with her new production of Gogol's 19th century satire The Government Inspector.

It will not be easy on the evidence of two sections of the Quarry Theatre seating being shrouded in black covers, but that still should not deflect from the theatrical impact of the first stage of new project called Ramps On The Moon.

It brings together a consortium of six regional theatres, the West Yorkshire Playhouse among them, to work with the Graeae Theatre Company, whose cause is to champions diversity in performance. In a nutshell, the initiative will see the creation of a series of shows that employs a fully integrated cast of disabled and non-disabled actors.

“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," said Silbert.

"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.”

York Press:

Roxana Silbert's cast for The Government Inspector. Picture: Robert Day

Adapted with brio by David Harrower, Gogol's rollicking play tells the tale of a small town in Russia run on corruption, where the Mayor (David Carlyle)learns that a Government Inspector is to make a visit, whereupon he is manically determined that the official will not discover the truth.

Carlyle leads the company as a kind of Scottish fusion of Basil Fawlty, Leonard Rossiter's Rigsby and Rik Mayall's Alan B'Stard in The New Statesman, but he does not dominate the show; instead the diverse company has a collective impact in this bravura story of the corrupt soul creating the corrupt society.

Designer Ti Green gives them a brilliant plaything: an all-wood open-plan design of a hotel with lifts and stairwells, lift music, "Going Down" announcements and all. Behind this is Timothy Bird's video backdrop, full of words and imagery and statements, while performer interpretors Becky Barry and Daryl Jackson are permanently whizzing around the stage, as busy as their bellboy attire would indicate.

Above are the surtitles, which become a character in their own right when Jean St Clair's Lyapkin-Tyapkin uses sign language that Robin Morrissey's "inspector" Khlestakov struggles to interpret and so the screen stumbles to a stop, announcing "Error".

There are wonderful performances from dwarf actors Kiruna Stanell and Francesca Mills as competitive mother and daughter Anna and Maria, and from Sophie Stone's Postmaster too. This is the first building block in Roxana Silbert's wish to change the landscape of theatre and it is a mighty fine start with a celebration of diversity that is as invigorating in its own way as the Paralympics.

The Government Inspector, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until Saturday. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk