Great expectations
The Wilde piece is well enough known (or should be!) to preclude description here. One difficulty with doing a ‘classic' is that comparisons with the ‘star' productions are inevitably invoked. Many of the audience would have, for example, Dame Edith Evans' momentous incredulity – "A handbag' – in the back of their minds. Any cast will always have inherent difficulties delivering that and similar lines against preordained expectations.

I was not disappointed. The delightful Gemma Watson cut a severely intimidating figure as Lady Bracknell which reminded me only too well of one of my own late great-aunts. It was not so much the handbag that was the problem, I felt, but that it was a particularly scruffy, nasty, ordinary and, well, common handbag that the dear lady was upset about.

All-round excellence
Ms Watson's performance was well matched by all the cast. Taking but one example, even the humble manservant Lane (Benedict Johnson) made it clear that he was no fool as far as his master was concerned – an interpretation which foreshadows the later creation of the indispensable ‘power behind the throne', the wily Jeeves.

The glittering and blistering dialogue between the two young women, Miss Cardew and the Hon Gwendoline Fairfax, was also a joy to listen to. Wicked! – just as Wilde intended it. Furthermore, Nicola Robinson's direction unwaveringly underpinned the verbal sparkle. Every gesture, including the imaginary fourth-wall mirror, was exquisitely and aptly stylised, every move was pure elegance. The genealogical and psychological dénouements, which tumble wackily onto the audience in the manner of those in Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro', were excellently contrived and controlled.

A sheer delight …
In short, a sheer delight, whose only minor shortcoming was the unnecessary and not entirely consistent or convincing 1950s setting. I can remember that decade, and British society was too much still in post-war shock for Wilde's or Noel Coward's antics to be believable any more.

… and a tonic
But is irrelevant, as the lady might have said. I went to see this production whilst feeling like death with a nasty and acute ear infection. Not only could I hear every word in spite of the otic blockages, but came away feeling thoroughly elated and, well, better. The world, with or without society, seemed a better place to be in that night. Well done.

Copyright © 3 February 2004 Michael Nunn