The Hypochondriac centres on Argan, a perfectly healthy and wealthy gentleman, who is convinced he is seriously ill. So obsessed is he with medicinal tinkerings and tonics that he is blind to the goings-on in his own household. However, his most effective cure will not appear in a bottle or a bedpan, but in his sharp-tongued servant, who has a cunning plan to reveal the truth and open her master’s eyes.

Roger McGough, Liverpool’s Poet Laureate, adapts another Moliere classic after last year’s Tartuffe.

The Hypochondriac was Moliere’s last play and a scathingly funny lampoon on both hypochondria and the ‘quack’ medical profession.