Based upon an anecdote allegedly recounted to Gogol by Pushkin,[2] the play is a comedy of errors, satirizing human greed, stupidity, and the political corruption of contemporary Russia.

The dream-like scenes of the play, often mirroring each other, whirl in the endless vertigo of self-deception around the main character, Khlestakov (rendered in some English translations as Hlestakov), who personifies irresponsibility, light-mindedness, and absence of measure.

Nicholas I was personally present at the play's premiere on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on April 19, 1836, concluding that "there is nothing sinister in the comedy, as it is only a cheerful mockery of bad provincial officials.

"[3] According to D. S. Mirsky, The Government Inspector "is not only supreme in character and dialogue – it is one of the few Russian plays constructed with unerring art from beginning to end.

[5] Early in his career, Gogol was best known for his short stories, which gained him the admiration of the Russian literary circle, including Alexander Pushkin.

The flurry of activity to cover up their considerable misdeeds is interrupted by the report that a suspicious person had arrived two weeks previously from Saint Petersburg and is staying at the inn.

Sick and tired of the Mayor's ludicrous demands for bribes, the town's Jewish and Old Believer merchants arrive, begging Khlestakov to have him dismissed from his post.

In 1926, the expressionistic production of the comedy by Vsevolod Meyerhold "returned to this play its true surrealistic, dreamlike essence after a century of simplistically reducing it to mere photographic realism".

[7] Leonid Grossman recalls that Garin's Khlestakov was "a character from Hoffmann's tale, slender, clad in black with a stiff mannered gait, strange spectacles, a sinister old-fashioned tall hat, a rug and a cane, apparently tormented by some private vision".

"[9] Films based on The Government Inspector include: In 1958 the British comedian Tony Hancock appeared as Khlestakov in a live BBC Television version (which survives).

Fyodor Dostoyevsky played the postmaster Shpekin in a charity performance with proceeds going to the Society for Aid to Needy Writers and Scholars in April 1860.

The UN Inspector (2005) by David Farr is a "freely adapted" version written for London's National Theatre, which transposed the action to a modern-day ex-Soviet republic.

In 2011, London's Young Vic Theatre presented a new version adapted by David Harrower, directed by Richard Jones, starring Julian Barratt, Doon Mackichan and Kyle Soller.

The show was advertised as a comedy, in which music, costumes, dance, and movement by the actors tells the story in the absence of words.

Canadian Dance Company Kidd Pivot produced and toured with a dance-theatre performance Revisor based on the Gogol story (2019).