The Diary of a Madman

Nikolai Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman, as adapted by David Holman with Neil Armfield and Geoffrey Rush, tells the story of lowly civil servant Poprishchin, driven mad by bureaucracy. A burnt-out paper-pusher who ekes out a meager living in czarist St. Petersburg, Poprishchin spends his days doing menial tasks, anxious and teetering on the brink of lunacy. Immobilized by a rigid social hierarchy, Poprishchin cuts adrift from reality, imagining himself well above his station, and conjuring entire realms both incredible and terrifying.