Director Max Webster reverted to Oscar Wilde’s original four-act version, restoring some of the cuts made to produce the version that premièred in 1895. There are also a few modern interpolations and a radical approach that recognises the play’s queer undertones and perhaps makes it even more wildly Wildean.
Designer Rae Smith frames it in a Neoclassical proscenium with footlights and red velvet curtain to mark it a period piece, and the audience arrive to see a black Gladstone bag hanging dead centre: an enigma to those who don’t know the play and reminder of its plot place for those who do.
Then there’s a surprise: Ncuti Gatwa’s Algernon Moncrieff as a drag diva in a pink satin gown at a grand piano surrounded by a cross-dressed cast in evening wear. In this production, it isn’t only his friend Jack Worthing (Hugh Skinner) who leads a double life, and Algy makes the audience complicit as he acknowledges a lapse in matching his fingers to recorded sound. He has barely swept off before we are with Julian Bleach’s discreet and prim manservant Lane in Algy’s elegant apartment, where its owner changes into a flamboyant suit that is to die for!
The setting is pristine, everything as sharply defined as Wilde’s wit. Its bright colours and lavish costumes produce a suitably artificial reality like the flowers in the stage garden. Algy’s friend in the country, whose frequent illnesses provide an excuse for him to leave town, and Jack’s profligate younger brother, his excuse to come up to town, are inventions and the whole play is clever contrivance.
Though packed with comments and quips satirising late nineteenth century society (most of which haven’t dated), it is as theatre, not as a presentation of real life, that this production is enjoyable—and it is very enjoyable, positive pleasure.
You are too busy laughing to stop and wonder why these surely gay men are making such efforts to woo the young ladies they say they are in love with—they even kiss each other at a moment when they should kiss the girls. But then the girls—Algy’s cousin Gwendolen (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́) and Jack’s ward Cecily (Eliza Scanlen)—have their own fantasies and a hint, on this showing, of mutual attraction.
Most assuredly heterosexual however are Cecily’s governess-companion Miss Prism (Amanda Lawrence, wonderfully scatterbrained) and her clerical admirer, gently protective Canon Chasuble (Richard Cant).
Then there is Ernest. Most readers will know who he is and why he is in earnest, for the rest—well reviewers shouldn’t reveal everything.
There may be many who will think this production goes to far in its treatment, but it is strongly acted by a cast that go along with its spirit and understand comedy timing. Outstanding among them is Sharon D Clarke as Lady Bracknell, Algy’s Aunt Augusta, whose approval Jack must gain if he is to marry Gwendolen. She would be a striking presence even without the bright yellow dress and huge matching hat in which we first see her, the hat worn over a head wrap, which like her accent is a reminder of her Caribbean heritage though now she is upper crust British society. She is commanding without being imperious. The well-known reference to a handbag that Dame Edith Evens made so forceful is here almost gulped back in shocked surprise; greater scorn is reserved for the parcel that follows.
The queer undercurrent has always been there in this play, so don’t let the gay emphasis in this production put you off. This is high comedy, not RuPaul’s Drag Race. I certainly left in high spirits—an early Christmas treat.
The National Theatre Live capture of this production will be in cinemas from 20 February 2025.
Reviewer: Howard Loxton