Theatre review: The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde's famous comedy about an imaginary friend who seems to have a busier social life than any of the "real" characters is one I do think is very funny, but it's produced so often and the aphorisms are so famous that it's hard to be surprised by it. So I need a good excuse to see any particular production. Max Webster's new revival of The Importance of Being Earnest has a big selling point in that it's always a big deal when the current Doctor takes to the stage, but what sold it for me was that Ncuti Gatwa was just part of a cast heavy on openly LGBTQ+ stars. The rather dubious "fact" that keeps getting rolled out for this play's title is that "Earnest" was a private Victorian code for gay people to identify each other, like an early version of Polari. The fact that I've never seen this referenced in any other context makes me suspect the only real pun in the title is the one that's right there in the last line of the play, but I did think we might be in for a version that focuses on the campness of the characters, and the metaphor in their double lives.

And we certainly get a statement of that intent in the opening, which sees the majority of the cast turn up in drag to do a big dance number, before we settle into Algernon's (Gatwa) London flat. I've said before The Importance of Being Earnest has less of a plot, more of an excuse to string a lot of absurdly arch pronouncements together, but what plot there is involves Algernon's friend Jack, out of whom Hugh Skinner mines every bit of nice-but-dim posh awkwardness.

Jack has an alter-ego called Ernest, and in the later scenes in the countryside both he and Algernon, without the other's knowledge, take on that alter-ego while pursuing their respective romantic interests. As Jack is wooing Algernon's cousin, he also has to take on the whims and demands of his formidable aunt Lady Bracknell in order to get permission to marry Gwendolyn. In one of the production's unexpected twists, Sharon D Clarke plays her every bit as imperious as she's usually portrayed, but with a Caribbean accent that makes her a grand lady of the wider Empire who's settled very comfortably into London high society, but with her own very particular little eccentricities.

Although Rae Smith's set is impressive, it's her costumes that are the showstoppers here, with a lot of floral prints on men and women alike, while Gatwa's outfits seem to be mostly about what isn't there - if the show isn't finding excuses for him to bend over and show off his arse, his clothes are falling off altogether. But everything pales in front of Lady Bracknell's outfits, and Clarke's entrances become as much about the burst of colour as they are about the arrival of the play's most famous cameo role. (Vanessa said she wanted to wear her third-act outfit for her daughter's wedding; I suggested that turning up as a West Indian Lady Bracknell could be construed as trying to upstage the bride.)

With Smith's set building a more elaborate proscenium arch within the Lyttelton's plain one, overt theatricality is the name of the game here - characters seem to break the fourth wall more than usual, and the discovery of the notorious handbag sees Skinner clamber out of the arch altogether. Scenes also end with the characters continuing to talk after the curtain has gone down so that the scene change doesn't hold up the action, something that Jack even references as a way to cut short a protracted argument with Algernon ("come on, we've covered the set change now.") It's just as well these are covered so smoothly, as the bells and whistles added to the play already bring it in at a hefty three hours, which is probably the only major downside to the approach - a play that's ultimately all about the dialogue could certainly be snappier.

In fact although enjoyable, I didn't personally find myself laughing that much in the first half - though as I already mentioned, familiarity with the gags is a problem here. The production takes the interval halfway through the second act, and after that I found things picked up: The passive-aggressive scene between Gwendolyn and Cecily is an underrated highlight in my opinion, and Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ and Eliza Scanlen bring a lot of energy, and no small dose of eccentricity, to their violent flips back and forth between being best friends and hissing enemies. They also bring a further sense of queerness in the suggestion they're as interested in each other as they are their prospective fiancés.

Richard Cant and Amanda Lawrence bring their own scene-stealing oddness as Dr Chasuble and Miss Prism's flirtation involves them pecking around each other like birds, and on top of Gatwa and Clarke the show has a further Doctor Who connection as long-standing Davros Julian Bleach plays a duo of oddball servants with a tendency to creep up on their masters. What with Cecily entertaining herself during the final act's exposition dump by getting a bit too interested in the naked statues, Webster's production embraces turning much of the play's subtext into text, and provides a lot of fun - if the pace could just be a bit snappier it would be hard to fault.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is booking until the 25th of January at the National Theatre's Lyttelton.

Running time: 3 hours including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.