Roger McGough’s magic is back in town

Liverpool’s Poet Laureate Roger McGough has adapted another Molière classic for the Playhouse theatre.

The Hypochondriac follows last year’s hysterical and critically acclaimed Tartuffe and on this occasion McGough turns prose into verse with what ironically was to be Molière’s last play and a scathingly funny lampoon on both hypochondria and the ‘quack’ medical profession.

This co-production with English Touring Theatre is directed by Everyman and Playhouse artistic director, Gemma Bodinetz, with a cast that includes consummate stage and screen actor Clive Francis (Never So Good, National Theatre) as Argan, Lucinda Raikes (Karen Ball in Green Wing, Angela Heaney in The Thick Of It and In the Loop) as Angelique and Leanne Best (Desperately Seeking Susan, West End; Unprotected, Liverpool Everyman and Traverse, Edinburgh) as Toinette.

The Hypochondriac opens at the Liverpool Playhouse from 19 June until 11 July before touring the UK in the autumn.

In 2008, Roger McGough was commissioned to adapt Molière’s Tartuffe as part of the Everyman and Playhouse European Capital of Culture programme, which transferred to the Rose Theatre, Kingston.

To read the Whatsonstage.com review of Tartuffe click here