In an age when the whistle blower might still find himself holed up in a foreign embassy or fleeing to the relative safety of Moscow, we could be forgiven for thinking that such extremes would only apply to those who lift the lid on state secrets.

Certainly we would like think Henrik Ibsen’s Dr Stockman, who sets out to reveal a serious health risk at the town’s spa baths, would today be seen as the acceptable face of leaking.

And yet only recently have we enshrined in law the protected status of those in public service who decide to lift the lid.

Ibsen’s exploration of how the truth can be supressed when too many vested interests are ranged against it opens at the Chichester Festival Theatre itself this week.

Writing at a time when public health was still a novel idea and deference to ‘The Powers That Be’ ruled life in small town Norway, as it did in Britain,

Ibsen cuts through the morality of those in positions of authority, including the good doctor himself, to lay bare the many hypocrisies.

The popular press, the town traders, Dr Stockman’s own brother the Mayor, even the simple townsfolk, twist in the wind as the storm gathers around their livelihoods and prosperity.

Stockman himself, played wonderfully by Hugh Bonneville, proves to be an all too familiar would-be hero as his ego and sense of self-righteous self-importance overwhelm the true scandal at the heart of the strife, the deadly bacteria that lurks in the bath’s waters.

Bonneville is tremendous as the headline-seeking medic who naively believes the investigation he has undertaken into the town’s golden asset will bring him fame.

As those who initially supported his findings turn against him and with them the mob, Bonneville is superb as his self-assurance turns to self-pity and he spits bile and vengeance against all of his fellow citizens.

William Gaminara plays Stockman’s brother Peter, the town mayor who puts more store in his official cap of office than saving the lives of tourists visiting the sewage-ridden spa.

Gaminara produces a hateful tour-de-force, menacingly subtle as the leader of the town’s vested interests who skilfully manoeuvre the doctor from hero to the people’s enemy.

Director Howard Davies injects an edge-of-seat pace into Ibsen’s drama, the public meeting scene and subsequent rabble-rousing are superbly staged.

Ibsen wrote An Enemy of the People in response to critical attacks on his previous works where he attempted to portray a darker side to society.

His Dr Goodman here may be played with more humour than expected, but his warnings remains just as potent today as when he scandalised society 140-years ago.

An Enemy of the People runs until May 21.