Lorna Irvine reviews a touring production of the comedy classic with mixed results.
Focusing on the ageing Bunbury Players, who are staging an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde classic comedy of manners, this play is curious: Bunbury writer Simon Brett's script and Lucy Bailey's direction is almost insufferably twee, crammed with in-joke clichés like 'ooh,look, the actors are wearing trainers and having affairs'. It feels unnecessary, like they couldn't trust staging a straight adaptation, and it feels like a simple justification for older actors taking on youthful roles.
Thankfully, the superfluous subtext is dispensed with during the second half, and the original source material is robustly portrayed, apart from a garbled Martin Jarvis as John Worthing, who sadly displays why television sitcoms are the best fit for him, and not the stage. VOICE PROJECTION, DAAAAARLING!
Nigel Havers makes for an appealing Algernon Moncrieff and Christine Kavanagh comes into her own as a catty Cecily Cardena in the second half. Wilde's aphorisms are beautifully tackled by the cast, his wry commentary on the upper-classes still apposite.
But it's an incredibly sprightly Sian Phillips who proves why she's still a force to be reckoned with—eighty-two years old and still a formidable presence as the venal Lady Bracknell. Such a portrayal is sheer class, elevating what may have been an otherwise unremarkable adaptation. And William Dudley's chintzy interior is gorgeous to look at.
At the Theatre Royal until November 28 before continuing its UK tour.
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