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.

Theatre review: The Canterville Ghost

Southwark Playhouse offers up a ghost story for October, although hardly a classic Halloween chiller: Tall Stories' The Canterville Ghost, which has been touring on and off since 2018, adapts Oscar Wilde's comic short story about a ghost who meets his match when a new family move into the mansion he's been haunting for three centuries, and fail to be in the slightest bit scared of him. Instead the two children play practical jokes on the ghost until he enlists the girl's help to pass on to the other side for good. It's a very simple story, and I've grumbled at other Wilde adaptations before that if a story was likely to work on stage he'd probably have written it that way himself. But Olivia Jacobs, Toby Mitchell (writer-directors,) Jon Fiber & Andy Shaw (music and lyrics) aren't going for anything like a straightforward adaptation of the original here.

Theatre review: Salomé

Oscar Wilde is known for extremes: The frothy comedies on one hand, the disgrace and despair of his later years on the other. Somewhere in between was his desire to add a more dramatic string to his bow, and like Racine a couple of centuries earlier he wanted to take Greek Tragedy as his starting point. His personal life having other plans, the only one of these tragedies he actually got to write was Salomé, which applies a biblical story to that format, ending up with a twisted and gory dance through the extremes of sexual obsession. And that's before you get to the added twists individual productions might have in mind: Ricky Dukes' for Lazarus Theatre isn't even the first I've seen to queer up Wilde even further, by gender-flipping the title character. King Herod (Jamie O'Neill) has, in a plot point reminiscent of another famous tragedy, had his own brother killed and married his widow, Herodias (Pauline Babula.) Apart from the obvious, the tension in their marriage is also caused by Herod's undisguised interest in her son Salomé (Fred Thomas.)

Stage-to-screen review: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is a story that's endlessly popular for stage adaptation, although in my experience it always seems to struggle there - perhaps that's why it's the one story Wilde chose to tell as a novel rather than a play or poem. It now surfaces again as the latest pandemic-era streaming production, from co-producers the Barn Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre, New Wolsey Theatre, Oxford Playhouse and Theatr Clwyd - filmed largely at the Barn, adapted by the Lawrence Batley's Artistic Director Henry Filloux-Bennett and directed by Clwyd's AD Tamara Harvey, a number of other partner theatres also benefit from one of the more star-studded of the recent online shows. Keeping Wilde's core characters intact but going for a much looser adaptation of the actual story, Filloux-Bennett turns it into a parable about social media that's firmly rooted in last year's events.

Stage-to-screen review: An Ideal Husband

With London theatres now closed for the foreseeable future the focus has very quickly shifted to how those of us who spend far too much time there can get our regular fix from home. Streaming quickly jumped in to take the strain and there should be plenty of culture available soon with the BBC planning a whole online festival, and a number of individual recordings starting to show up. In the meantime there's also a few existing platforms available; Marquee TV is one I only heard of recently, and which seems to lean heavily on the side of opera and dance, so its theatre offerings consist almost entirely of shows I've already seen. Their library does include almost all of Classic Spring's Oscar Wilde season from 2017-18 at the Vaudeville, including one installment I skipped at the time, An Ideal Husband. Jonathan Church directs a Wilde play with a more overtly political slant than most.

Theatre review: The Importance of Being Earnest

Dominic Dromgoole’s Classic Spring company was set up to present late 19th and early 20th century classics in the West End proscenium arch theatres they were written for, the suggestion being that’s something of a unique opportunity. While that might have been the case with some of the more obscure plays that opened the Oscar Wilde season, the concluding part is The Importance of Being Earnest, whose last West End revival wasn’t only three years ago, but in the same theatre, the Vaudeville. At the time I said the twenty-year gap I’d left since last seeing the play was probably about right given its ubiquity and familiarity, and I hadn’t been planning to return for this version. But the combination of Michael Fentiman directing and Sophie Thompson reclaiming the role of Lady Bracknell for actual female actors was tempting, and with a quiet August week on the horizon I decided to fill a spare evening seeing if some well-worn bon mots could feel fresh.

Theatre review: Lady Windermere's Fan

Dominic Dromgoole passes the directing reins over to Kathy Burke for the second major production in his Oscar Wilde season at the Vaudeville: Lady Windermere’s Fan slightly predates A Woman of No Importance but, for my money, feels the more rounded and accomplished play; and while it also has a strong cast, it doesn’t depend on them as strongly to do a salvage job as the first in the season depended on Eve Best. Lady Margaret Windermere (Grace Molony) has been married for two years, and has failed to pick up on the hints everyone’s dropping that her marriage is the subject of much gossip. It’s only when the Duchess of Berwick (Jennifer Saunders) outright tells her that she learns her husband Arthur (Joshua James) has in recent months started to pay regular visits to a mysterious woman; a look through his bank book reveals he’s also been paying her large sums of money.

Theatre review: A Woman of No Importance

Another day, another former Artistic Director of a major South Bank theatre launches his new commercial production company. Where Nicholas Hytner's unique selling point - a large-scale London theatre that's actually fit for purpose - is one I can see the need for, I can't say the same for ex-Globe boss Dominic Dromgoole's new Classic Spring venture: The idea is to present seasons of late-19th and early-20th century classics in the West End proscenium arch theatres they were originally written for (Jonathan Fensom's designs fairly lush but offering no surprises.) A Shaw season is coming up, but first a year-long residency of Oscar Wilde plays at the Vaudeville, which is what makes me wonder exactly what gap Dromgoole thinks he's spotted in the market: The inevitable conclusion next year will be The Importance of Being Earnest, at which point it'll be only three years since the play's last revival at the very same theatre. At least the opening production is of a play not revived anywhere near as often, although for too much of A Woman of No Importance it's obvious why.

Theatre review: Salomé (RSC / Swan)

It's not the subtlest form of flirtation but if you ask a lady nicely she might get her cock out for you - although you might have to give her head in return. Yep, it's the story that's been striking dread into London's theatregoers but I'm not crazy enough to see the National's Salomé again - this time it's Stratford-upon-Avon and Oscar Wilde's one-act tragedy. But even this isn't quite the version Wilde imagined, although he'd probably have enjoyed watching it for a couple of reasons: The text is unchanged but director Owen Horsley is using it to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality. The online trailer for the show has the feel of a gentleman's specialist film, and Bretta Gerecke's designs immediately suggest a gay club, the kind that probably isn't too surprised or bothered if more than one person uses the same toilet cubicle.

Theatre review: The Importance of Being Earnest

Productions of The Importance of Being Earnest aren't exactly a rarity - in fact the last West End outing was only a year ago, and it didn't even do particularly good business. So it's a show I don't feel compelled to catch any given production of as the next one will be along soon enough. But I last saw it at the Old Vic, which a quick google reveals to have been twenty years ago, so I figured it was time to give it another go in Adrian Noble's production, which has settled into the Vaudeville for the summer. There's famously far too many roles available for older women - it's something like that, right? - so David Suchet has stepped in to ease the workload by taking on the role of Lady Bracknell, the archetypal formidable aunt. In another outrageous bit of casting, the show also stars Philip Cumbus, meaning not only is he missing a Globe summer season in an odd-numbered year for the first time since his first season in 2007, he's also missing his beard.

Theatre review: The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the one story Oscar Wilde chose to tell in novel rather than play form, but this is something others have been trying to change ever since - so far I've seen adaptations including a musical and a ballet. The latest to bring it to the stage is professional Wilde descendant Merlin Holland, who adapts it with John O’Connor. Dorian Gray (Guy Warren-Thomas) is a rich and handsome young man who's caught the attention of London's aesthetes, and enthusiastically become one of them. Lord Henry (Gwynfor Jones) tells him that his youth and beauty are his defining qualities, and this leads Dorian to fixate on his fear of losing them. He makes a wish that he would sell his soul if the portrait just painted of him by Basil (Rupert Mason) aged while he got to keep his looks. When it comes true, he embarks on a life of debauchery seemingly without consequences.