The Importance of Being Earnest – Review of 2024 Production at the National Theatre, London

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the best comedies in English and is frequently produced. It is based on a perfect plot, great witty lines and even in weak productions it can be enjoyable. It is quintessentially British upper class, and nothing less than impeccable English accents will do.
The redoubtable National Theatre has mounted a production on the Lyttleton stage directed by Max Webster that promised to bring out the best of Wilde. The production does get guffaws and there are many references to homosexual attractions. Algernon (an exuberant Ncuti Gatwa) and Jack Worthing (Hugh Skinner) pursue and fall in love with the lovely Cecily (Eliza Scanlan) and Gwendolyn (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́) but the men may be more interested in each other’s homosexual proclivities than the girls. The two girls have a famous verbal spat over tea, but they display indubitable sapphic attraction. So be it.
Webster will do anything for a laugh. Worthing jumps on a table, he throws down the army lists from the top of a bookcase near the end of the play willy-nilly, all for a laugh. The servant Merriman (Julian Bleach who also plays Lane and is vey funny) calls Algernon, by banging on a tray and startling him. It gets a laugh but that is more TV sitcom level humour than Oscar Wilde.
Wilde’s play starts with a nice line as Algernon asks Lane what he thinks of his piano playing. He replies that he did not think it was polite to listen. That is not good enough for Webster, so he adds a scene of bacchanalian revels with a crosse-dressed Algernon in the centre. We don’t know who Algernon is yet and the scene struck me as unnecessary padding perhaps to add to the characterization of Algernon as Webster sees him. There is a similar appendage at the end of the play where the cast appears in a variety of colourful costumes dancing and taking bows. Is it really necessary? No.
Lady Bracknell is one of the great characters in English drama. She is a bigger than life virago with a tongue that can leave welts. Sharon D. Clarke has the physical size, voice and the gaudy costumes to be a convincing Bracknell. She makes pronouncements about the British upper crust that are delightful because she personifies the wealthy sliver of 19th century English society. But she speaks with a Jamaican accent. How did she sneak into that society? The Jamaican lilt has a musicality all its own but not on Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London in the 19th century.
Wilde’s play cam be done in different ways but going overboard and striving hard for laughs is neither necessary nor desirable.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde was performed until January 25, 2025, at the Lyttleton stage of the National Theatre, South Bank, London, England.

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Ncuti-Gatwa-(Algernon) at the-National-Theatre. Photo: Marc-Brenner

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