National Theatre Live – Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest: Filmed (directed by Matthew Amos) in London’s Lyttleton Theatre. (JPr)
National Theatre Live exclusively releases from 20 February – what it describes as – its ‘joyous reimagining’ of ‘Oscar Wilde’s most celebrated comedy The Importance of Being Earnest’. It is directed by Max Webster whose recent Macbeth at Donmar Warehouse I previewed here when it was shown in cinemas. Where Webster’s Shakespeare was bleak, his Wilde is just, well wild, and indeed joyous.
The programme extract available on the cast sheet proclaims; ‘It is in The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) that Wilde’s doctrine of individualism and creative self-realisation finds its ultimate expression. Its men and women are equally creatures of appetite and joyful fantasy, whether scoffing cucumber sandwiches and buttered muffins, or declaring that 17 years of chastity are out of the question as “I hate waiting even five minutes for anybody”. Everyone lives a double life, escaping the constrictions of propriety and responsibility, whether through their sensational diary or their three-volume novel of “more than usually revolting sentimentality” or by having an imaginary friend Bunbury – a necessity as Algernon observes for both husband and wife. Daringly, Wilde included a wealth of covert references in his punning text, from silver cigarette cases (a favourite gift to his gay lovers) to the title itself […] As Wilde commented years later, when revising the play for publication after his imprisonment.’
Indeed, Wilde’s final play premiered in February 1895 and in April he was in court initially for a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, but it led – as most must know – to that imprisonment for homosexuality. Although the homoerotic subtext of the play must have been mined before – though to my regret I have reached my eighth decade without seeing the play in its entirety until now – rarely can the four principal characters Algernon Moncrieff, Jack Worthing, Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax have ever appeared so sexually fluid.
The slightly louche ‘Algie’ describes the double lives he and his best friend Jack lead between London and the country as Bunburyism. Algie pretends to visit the invalid Bunbury so he can bypass any social engagements he would rather not be at. Whilst the outwardly more responsible Jack is caring for his young ward, Cecily, in Hertfordshire; yet has created a reprobate younger brother Ernest who he is apparently concerned about, as the cover for frequent trips to London.
Rae Smith’s turn-of-the-century sets and costumes are glorious from Algie’s exquisitely furnished apartment, with piano (more of that soon), chandeliers, chaise longue and mirror in which he frequently admires himself; to Cecily’s rose garden she tends in the country; and landowner Jack’s vast library, all booklined shelves, potted palms and staircases. There are two much larger than life nude male Romanesque statues that attract the attention of Jack who strokes the breast of the left one beside the door whilst Cecily takes an inordinate interest in a significant part of the other on the right. Costumes include Algie’s silk brocade floral suit, Jack in tweed with (I believe) Wilde’s favoured green carnation buttonhole, Cecily in a simple red floral print dress, Gwendolen in a reddy pink riding outfit, and her mother Lady Bracknell brings the Caribbean onto the set in her costumes and Sharon D Clarke’s accent. Initially a vision in yellow with a hat as big as a satellite dish and later in an extraordinarily colourful creation featuring yet more roses (flowers are the leitmotif of this production).
Clarke as the snobbish, unbending Lady Bracknell gets, of course, some of the best lines in the play and they come over better because she plays the role straighter (!) than the others around her (‘A handbag? … To be born, or at any rate bred, in a handbag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.’) That handbag is first seen poking through the red curtains of the stage’s false proscenium arch as the audience settle into their seats.
Algie takes Jack by surprise and arrives unannounced at his country estate pretending to be Ernest and takes a shine to Cecily. Later Gwendolen turns up to eventually to be followed by Lady Bracknell when all the play’s confusion of names and parentage gets neatly resolved, though their shenanigans make the declarations of devoted love by Jack for Gwendolen and Algie for Cecily not entirely convincing.
Webster treats the play as an adult panto, cranking up its farcical elements with hilarious results and giving it also something of a Bridgerton vibe, especially with Clarke’s Lady Bracknell something of a homage to Adjoa Andoh’s Lady Danbury. The cast indulge in all the potential innuendo Wilde’s words present and rekindle memories of the Carry On films. There is some amusing breaking of the fourth wall and minor adlibbing; as when the argument in front of that red curtain between Algie and Jack over tea cakes and muffins ends with Jack announcing, ‘We’ve covered the scene change’ and the curtain rises on the final act.
There is not a weak link in the cast of impeccable comic actors led by Ncuti Gatwa’s Algie, and with the equally impressive Hugh Skinner’s Jack, Ronke Adékoluéjó’s Gwendolen, Eliza Scanlen’s Cecily and Sharon D Clarke’s Lady Bracknell. There are also characterful vignettes from Richard Cant’s Reverend, Amanda Lawrence in the pivotal role of Miss Prism, as well as Julian Bleach as the two servants Merriman and Lane.
It all begins totally unexpectedly with the charismatic Gatwa’s Algie in a pink ballgown. He is channelling Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefers Blondes and at a piano ‘plays’ Grieg’s Piano Concerto before mashing it up with the first of many references in Webster’s staging to contemporary pop music. The performance ends with a curtain call with everyone having a whale of time in some exuberance which is part-Notting Hill Carnival and part-Pride parade.
Hopefully, you’ll enjoy every minute of The Importance of Being Earnest in the cinema as much as I did. For more about seeing it at a cinema near you click here.
Jim Pritchard
Featured Image: Ncuti Gatwa as Algernon Moncrieff at the piano © Marc Brenner
Cast:
Gwendolen Fairfax – Ronke Adékoluéjó
Merriman / Lane – Julian Bleach
Reverend Canon Chasuble – Richard Cant
Lady Bracknell – Sharon D Clarke
Algernon Moncrieff – Ncuti Gatwa
Miss Prism – Amanda Lawrence
Cecily Cardew – Eliza Scanlen
Jack Worthing – Hugh Skinner
Ensemble – Shereener Browne. Jasmine Kerr, Gillian McCafferty, Elliot Pritchard and John Vernon
Creatives:
Director – Max Webster
Set and Costumes – Rae Smith
Lighting designer – Jon Clark
Sound designer – Nicola T. Chang
Movement director – Carrie-Anne Ingrouille
Composer – DJ Walde
Physical Comedy advisor – Joyce Henderson
Intimacy coordinator – Ingrid Mackinnon
Was the Grieg Piano Concerto a reference to the Morecambe and Wise skit with André Previn? So many little references in this, I loved it!