Tartuffe (Remixed) at Marylebone Theatre

What is Pastor Terrance Blake thinking? Does he think at all? When the priest makes his arrival in the form of a buck-toothed Mark Rylance, his face contorted into a rictus grin of such aggressive cheer that one’s own facial muscles ache in sympathy, there seems to be little there at all. The occasion the pastor has been called upon to officiate is the wedding of Adanna (Sara Mokonen) – daughter of the wealthy, strictly traditionalist patriarch Oga (Usifu Jalloh) – to the considerably more laidback Sinclair (Ivandro Da Cruz Leite). The two families gathered for the occasion exchange ample passive aggression and even hostilities, but of the comfortable kind. Their mutual ribbing is an accepted part of the deal (Adanna’s family is Nigerian, while Sinclair’s is Jamaican, laying the ground for gentle culture clash comedy) while the pastor’s insistent good-naturedness sets most everyone ill at ease. He seems, to them, little more than a vacuous moron to be tolerated, but to Oga, so rapturously pure and true is his spirit as to make him equivalent to God himself made flesh. If not Jesus, Pastor Blake must surely be the next best thing, and his every word is to be heeded.

Those showing up to Darren Raymond’s contemporised take on Molière’s classic French farce for Rylance will not be disappointed with his preening grotesquerie, but what may catch them off guard is how sparingly he’s used. The purpose of this seemingly empty-headed interloper (though those with even a passing familiarity with the source text will know him on sight for a conniver, money-grubber and leeringly predatory hospitality-exploiter, but this reviewer digresses) is to illuminate the embattled family dynamics at the show’s core. Here, such radiant repugnance serves mainly to shed light on a magnetic ensemble, all hurt and longing in their own way. The newlyweds bloom with new love as their parents are firmly entrenched in marital decay; the spiritually adrift butt up against the delusionally devout, and many times over, they will turn against each other before seeing the true architect of their discord with clear eyes.

Sometimes, a show’s pleasures – and Tartuffe (Remixed) holds many – are so closely bound up with its cast that one is tempted to simply issue a laundry list of their excellence, one performer at a time. As Adanna’s sceptical, seen-it-all confidante Kemi, Morenike Onajobi savours many of Raymond’s finest deadpan asides, and she finds a worthy co-conspirator in Craig Blake as the groom’s father, who shares in her awed response to the escalating madness, and drives many of the most hapless attempts to put a stop to it. De Cruz Leite is an instantly winning romantic bumbler, affixed with the deer-in-the-headlights look of a man realising in real time just how far his hoped-for father-in-law will go to test his worthiness, and in the imposing figure of said in-law, Jalloh locates something as tragic as it is deeply, richly comic.

Throughout, Oga is a striking blend of stentorian gravitas and fickle, childlike malleability; he’s smugly assured of his own great wisdom even – perhaps especially – when it makes no sense. To cap it off, he entirely lacks the self-awareness to recognise that his convictions are liable to change depending on whichever tune Pastor Blake is singing: would he turn his own beloved wife out of the house if His Most Toothsome Holiness said so? “Immediately”, he declares without hesitation, and takes a swig of wine. It may be the show’s single funniest performance for the sheer magnitude of cluelessness contained therein, but the emotional wreckage left in Oga’s wake is permitted to register too, not least through the wounded but unshakable dignity Nakeba Buchanan brings to the fore as Elmire, his second wife (and the target of the pastor’s yucky ardour) who still faces an uphill battle within the family for that fact.

These dynamics all play out over a leisurely two hours 30 minutes runtime, and the most improbable feat of Raymond and co’s endeavour is that it scarcely feels it. Tartuffe (Remixed) motors along at a great clip, thanks in no small part to the playwright’s commitment to honouring the verse-driven approach of Molière’s text; scarcely a line or exchange passes that is not written in iambic pentameter with rhyming couplets. This effort must have been exhaustive at the keyboard (Raymond has spoken about spending hours wrestling with individual lines) but in practice it flows almost seamlessly, and any point where the seams show is simply taken as another opportunity for a laugh. Why not rhyme Adanna with banana? And if it is difficult to call to mind any obvious way of rhyming with Gandhi, trust that Raymond has that one covered too. The play is, first and foremost, a terrifically enjoyable, big-hearted, fast-moving romp. The clarity in which it holds its characters does not temper its affection for them, but expands it, to the point where one feels one is laughing with them even when it’s also at their expense (of course, an exception is made for that pesky pastor, who gets worse by the minute). If there is a major misstep, it’s in a fourth-wall-breaking moment in the homestretch that’s both too clever for its own good and not clever enough. The play’s rousing climax is serious while remaining, crucially, never self-serious. It makes the themes of communal solidarity in the face of colonial religious manipulation loud and clear by itself, without need for any didactic winking.

Ultimately, this new interpretation of Molière confidently blends a highly specific familial portrait with a keen sense of broad, slapstick farce. Its laughs gain in volume throughout, culminating in a riotous, crowd-pleasing finish that feels well-equipped for a transfer to a bigger theatre. Whatever playwright Darren Raymond does next, attention ought to be paid.

Thomas Messner
Photos: Mark Senior

Tartuffe (Remixed) is at Marylebone Theatre from 4^th September until 24^th October 2026. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.

Watch the trailer for Tartuffe (Remixed) at Marylebone Theatre here: