Molière’s ever popular comedy returns to Manchester in a new version by Robert Cogo-Fawcett and Royal Exchange Artistic Director Braham Murray.  While famed as a study of avarice, The Miser is also a hideous portrait of abusive relationships in a dysfunctional family.

The aged Harpagon - wealthy, covetous, and determined not to spend a single penny of his fortune - thinks of his grown-up children not merely as chattels but as long-term gilt-edged investments, and plans to marry them off for his own profitable ends.  Cléante and Elise however have already fallen in love with, respectively, their impoverished neighbour Mariane, and Harpagon’s insinuating steward Valère.  But there’s little hope for a happy ending because their father has arranged to marry Elise to a rich elderly widower that very evening, and he intends to wed Mariane himself.

The play is set in a ruined mansion, and the dilapidated interior contains nothing but bleached bare floorboards, plastic sheeting suspended from the collapsing ceiling, and a litter of dust sheets, step ladders and buckets.  The dress is early 80s New Romantic, allowing the costume department to flaunt their best frocks and frock-coats - but then designer Ashley Martin-Davis rips them up in a post-punk down-at-heel gesture totally in keeping with the stately hovel’s faded glamour, while wigs are all teased bleached tresses or over-gelled spikes, and the young men sport Adam Ant-style makeup.

Helena Kaut-Howson’s production contains two really special elements.  One is Derek Griffiths as Harpagon, a bedraggled tyrant whose frail frame is frequently shaken by monstrous and unjust passions, but who nevertheless has the audience laughing with him as well as at him.  The other cherishable ingredient is the clowning, particularly the physical comedy of Simon Gregor as a frenetic valet, and a beautifully judged turn by Julian Chagrin as Jacques, the put-upon cook-cum-coachman. 

In spite of its overtly depressing themes of thwarted love, impoverished lives, wasted youth, and a father metaphorically consuming his own children’s flesh, there is a bounce and energy underlying this show which is truly life-enhancing.

The Miser is on until Saturday 3 October 2009

Prices: £8.50-£29.50

Evenings: Mon-Fri @ 7.30, Sat @ 8pm

Matinees: Wed @ 2.30, Sat @ 4pm

Box Office: 0161 833 9833

www.royalexchange.co.uk