PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Redgrave Theatre, Bristol (29 Sept-8 Oct)

THEATRE There’s only one thing worse than being witty and that’s being too witty. That’s the problem with Oscar Wilde, and particularly with ‘…Earnest’: the witticisms are so perfectly honed, and come at you in such quick succession, that it can be hard to keep up. The play is a wonderfully silly story of secret and mistaken identities. It pretends – just like its main protagonists Algernon and Jack – to take nothing seriously, indeed to pursue triviality as a goal in itself, yet is in fact deeply subversive and viciously satirical about Victorian values. What line could be more challenging than “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing”?

Wilde wrote a first draft of the play quickly (in a few weeks in August 1894) but then began a process of rigorous revision. It is his finest, best loved and most performed work. As much of its humour derives from divisions of class and wealth, it retains a modern relevance and Wilde’s characters – particularly the indomitable Lady Bracknell (played here by Jacqueline Tong) – continue to influence our culture (where would Maggie Smith’s Downton Abbey character be without Lady B’s template?)

The players in Floor to Ceiling’s production are all extraordinarily well cast. They look exactly as one might hope. Algernon and Jack (Alasdair Buchan and Oliver Millingham respectively) are every inch the bright but bored, lounge-lizard London dandies we expect (although on opening night they seemed a bit fidgety – should the idle and languid really take off and put back on their jackets quite so frequently?).

The objects of their affections, Gwendolen and Cecily (Alex Gilbert and Grace Williams) are as beautiful and beguiling as praying mantises, as dainty and charming as basking sharks. Ruthless, competitive and demanding, they’ll grow up to become the next generation of Bracknell battleaxes. Even their future husbands know it – but they are too hopelessly in love to care. The two girls share a wonderful scene of physical comedy as they take tea: Gwendolen refuses sugar (it’s now “so unfashionable”), so Cecily secretly loads her cup with handfuls of the stuff.

But even with so very much to enjoy, your reviewer didn’t entirely relax into this production. The language couldn’t be faulted, most of the performances were spot on (and hugely appreciated by a very warm audience), the sets were kept elegantly straightforward but the play felt rushed – almost as if the director didn’t have faith that we would be prepared to work hard enough to enjoy every nuance of every line.

The great “A HANDBAG…?” moment, for example, was quite criminally understated here. I’m sure some would say the famously indignant Dame Edith Evans interpretation has become a hopeless cliché, but we were looking forward to relishing that line along with the cast – and we were disappointed.

Admittedly, the text of Earnest is rich – perhaps too rich for a modern theatrical diet – but audiences should be trusted to rise to the challenge and not be in a rush to get home early. We left the Redgrave on the stroke of 10. 10.15 would have been just fine. (Andy Batten-Foster)

Copyright Andy Batten-Foster 2011