This version of A Government Inspector is a Yorkshire take on Gogol's 1836 fantastical Russian satire. The setting is here transposed to a small northern town in the twenty-first century, geographically and culturally remote from the centre of government.

Into a small Pennine town a mysterious stranger is mistaken for a government inspector. Fearing discovery of their corrupt goings-on, the town's unscrupulous councillors attempt to ingratiate themselves. Bribes, backhanders and brown envelopes abound, and the young chap, who has an eye for a quick buck, takes full advantage...

The first of the great Russian novels and one of the indisputable masterpieces of world literature, Dead Souls is the tale of Chichikov, an affably cunning con man who causes consternation in a small Russian town when he shows up out of nowhere proposing to buy title to serfs who, though dead as doornails, are still property on paper. What can he have up his sleeve, the local landowners wonder, even as some rush to unload what isn't of any use to them anyway, while others seek to negotiate the best deal possible, and others yet hold on to their dead for...