3 – 12 July 2025
by Oscar Wilde
Also known as A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, Oscar Wilde’s classic satire of the upper classes portrays two young men, Jack and Algernon, who are keen to avoid their social obligations. Clearly, the easiest way to get out of anything is to pretend that your name is Ernest. Thus chaos, comedy and confusion ensues as both young men develop their own love interests, try to thwart each other and seek to avoid domination by the indomitable Lady Bracknell.
Fans of handbags, cucumber sandwiches, relations, carelessness, proposals, christenings, railway stations (especially the Brighton line) and governesses with secrets cannot fail to be entertained by Wilde’s witticisms and exaggerated characters.
Written in 1895, his play of conformity and resistance, duty and pleasure reminds us all that whilst to be earnest is a virtue, there is so much fun to be had in bending the rules.
Cast
Algernon Moncrieff | Sam Norris
Jack Worthing | Chris Sharrock
Lady Bracknell | Suzi Whittle
Gwendolen Fairfax | Lucinda Banton
Miss Prism | Anne Gregory
Cecily Cardew | Alice Monaghan
Canon Chasuble | Chris Hannigan
Lane | Chris Hearn
Merriman | Keith Orton
Directed by John Shepherd
Photography by Chris Fenton
Review | July 2025 | Theo Spring
The conundrum facing the set designer for this delightful and much-loved Oscar Wilde play is how to manage the required three different sets. Here Katie McMullen not only solved the problem admirably but achieved the ‘wow’ factor as the flat in Half-Moon Street, London was transformed, with admirable speed, to the floriferous garden of the Manor House, Woolton, Hertfoldshire. For Act Three and the drawing room at the same Manor House, there was an interval for the set change. Understanding the need for that speedy change, I did, however, feel that the flat was just a little sparse and needed maybe one or even two more pieces. The use of pictures on the walls was clever décor but the picture beyond the central arch seemed a little dark. The garden set truly deserved the applause it received; the garden furniture was just right and the statue chosen to grace that same arch brought such elegance to the garden. Roses abounded including, maybe, the rejected Maréchal Niel in favour of a pink rose for Algernon’s buttonhole.
Notwithstanding the need for an excellent cast, the production also requires authentic, refined, and in the case of Lady Bracknell, slightly overpowering costume. Nigel Kemp dressed the whole cast elegantly with outstanding costumes – from the beautiful clothes for the ladies right down to Jack’s mourning dress and an amazing hat for Lady B in Act Three.
The mix of characters Wilde created for his comedy were well served here. Sam Norris and Chris Sharrock achieved the contrast of Sam’s irresponsible Algernon Moncrieff against the Chris’ more responsible Jack Worthing. Their teasing over the cigarette case in Act One was aptly playful and Jack’s balance between timidity and bravado as he faced the scrutiny of Lady Bracknell’s enquiries into his appropriateness as a suitor was as amusing as ever. To Suzi Whittle fell the oft quoted role of Lady Bracknell. Letting the words do the entertaining, her delivery was a little on the mild side, particularly for one who is accused, by Jack, of being a ‘Gorgon’ . Her appraisal of Cecily in Act Three worked very well as she swung from the dismissive to the acquisitive on hearing of Cecily’s fortune – “A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the funds!”
Lucinda Banton as Gwendoline Fairfax has some of Wilde’s best lines and her characterisation was just right. Alice Monaghan delivered a delightful Cecily – making her invented engagement with Algernon a reality, and both of them made the utmost of the instant friendship/loathing/friendship over which of them was, in fact, engaged to ‘Ernest’.
Cecily’s governess, Miss Prism, has to be many things during the play – an authoritative teacher, a simpering singleton and a quaking nursemaid. Anne Gregory pulled off all three, really coming into her own as she revealed her aberration as to what to she actually put in that handbag, and where she left it!
Chris Hannigan’s Dr Chasuble really caught the character and he invented a Chasuble I have not seen done before. His interaction with Miss Prism was understated but spoke volumes!
There are two butlers in the piece. Chris Hearn rightly made Lane obsequious yet obviously so much above his master Algernon in intelligence whereas Keith Orton’s Merriman showed the exasperation of being at the beck and call of everyone at The Manor, turning him into a comedy character.
Solving all the vicissitudes which this play demands, Director John Shepherd had gathered an excellent production team and cast about him, delivering up the play in its best light and sending his audience out, whether familiar with the play or new to it, with a smile.