On paper "Gamblers" at the Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn, also looked a winner. This is the long-delayed English premiere of a Gogol play (1843) about a group of card-sharps in provincial Russia conning a naive young hussar out of his father's wealth, but the show itself is something of a confidence trick, promising much more than it delivers.
Directed by the heavily touted Lithuanian Dalia Ibelhauptaite, and starring some fine English actors as well as the Russian star Oleg Menshikov, the production looks impressive. In Oleg Sheintsis's striking design, the tiny Tricycle stage is crammed with full-sized, 19th-century carriages from which the play's conmen emerge like malevolent Jack-in-the-boxes, The director struggles hard (too hard) to create a nightmarish night-time atmosphere of greed and corruption but, despite all her hectic endeavours, the required sense of evil proves elusive. Gogol's drab play is finally enlivened with a brilliant twist, but the ingenious sting in the tale only serves to confirm one's suspicion that this story of card-sharps is a one-trick wonder.

Submitted by Jane Grey