REVIEW: Tartuffe (Remixed) at Marylebone Theatre 4 Sept - 24 October 2026
'blasting the cobwebs from Molière’s wig'★★★★★
There’s love in the air and a wedding on the horizon. We’re in the luxurious home of Oga, a proud Nigerian family man whose daughter, Adenna will soon marry Sinclair, her Jamaican beau. However, this joyful news is eclipsed by the arrival of Pastor Blake, whom Oga, a religious man, welcomes like Christ himself. “To know him is to know God.” But is this pious pontificator in a dog collar, fond of spouting Biblical verse and offering advice, all he's cracked up to be? As we watch him ingratiate himself into the heart of the family, the audience witnesses the power of belief, machinations of manipulation and the cost of blind faith.
Written in 1664,
Tartuffe, a satirical comedy by Molière, France’s Shakespeare, was scandalous at the time for its mockery of the Catholic church. Some demanded Molière be burnt at the stake for this play. Over 400 years later, this fantastically funny production, according to Marylebone Theatre’s Artistic Director, Alexander Gifford is both “a revival and new play.”
Tartuffe (Remixed) is the inspired brainchild of writer/director Darren Raymond, AD of Intermission Youth Theatre, and Mark Rylance, acting royalty and also a founding trustee of Intermission Youth Theatre.
Transposing the narrative into an African-Caribbean household is a masterstroke. Adherence to religious values and the importance of Pentecostal or Charismatic church communities is a colonial throwback and still features large within the African diaspora. It’s a wholly convincing alternative to the original scenario of a French priest among Catholics. Here, where God matters and his servants hold great status and sway, a white Anglican vicar in an all-black community would be welcomed and (largely) trusted, even if he arrives with no possessions and his suit looks a bit shabby.
Mark Rylance as Pastor Blake, the amoral imposter, fuses pantomime villain with Dick Emery’s vicar. Shifty as they come and dodgy as hell, there’s no end to his wickedness. With sticky-out teeth and a cloying quality, he’s the type of antagonist an audience loves to hate and wants to see punished. Rylance, “a wolf in shepherd’s dress,” gleefully embraces his role as the token white man and a baddie at that, in a super-talented all-black cast that dazzles across four generations. All the actors in this show and many of the production team are part of the Intermission family and either trained with or supported the youth theatre through workshops or mentoring.
Usifu Jalloh's Oga, the patriarch rules his home with unyielding authority; his eyes glitter with Christian zeal. Morenike Onajobi gives a magnificently regal, kick-ass performance as Kemi, the bride’s best friend who can see what others cannot. Suzette Llewellyn is magnetic as the devout, bible-hugging Grandma. While it goes against the grain to have such a busy cast, the intergenerational energy is raucous, authentic and gives many opportunities to play out shifting dynamics between father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife etc. At times of fraught division, it’s like an outtake from the
Jerry Springer Show - but much more glamorous. Designer ULTZ, Maybelle Laye (Associate Costume Designer), and Shola Ajayi (a British Nigerian fashion designer) co-create a gorgeous rainbow cavalcade for the traditional Yoruba Wedding.
Honouring the original format of rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter, the fresh text is chopped, sliced and mixed, like music sampling, intercut with Afro-Caribbean vernacular and street talk. It’s funny, entertaining and accessible. While reading the original synopsis of Tartuffe: turgid, convoluted and complex - you may lose the will to live, this new version blasts the cobwebs from Molière’s wig and electrifies the original narrative with new relevance. In this age of the forked tongue, we are saturated in fake news, duplicitous presidents, Ai-generated commercials, and The Traitors.
Tartuffe, the Imposter, to give the original its full name feels entirely relevant and Tartuffe (Remixed) is a cautionary tale of appearances that deceive and words that lack sincerity and the truth of this message will resonate across generations.
At Marylebone Theatre until 24 October
Director & Writer: Darren Raymond
Designer: ULTZ
Lighting Designer: Simisola Majekodunmi
Sound Designer & Composer: Duramaney Kamara
Associate Costume Designer & Costume Supervisor: Maybelle Laye
General Manager: Wild Yak
Presented by Marylebone Theatre, Patrick Myles & David Luff & Shakespeare Road in partnership with Intermission
