The Importance of Being Earnest (Noel Coward Theatre, London)
Was ever an actor more obviously born to play a role?
It was surely only a matter of time before Stephen Fry, having already given us his Oscar Wilde on film in 1997, should take to the stage as one of Wilde’s most colourful characters – Lady Bracknell – in the gloriously frivolous and endlessly quotable romcom, The Importance Of Being Earnest.
It’s a joyfully exuberant production, now recast and transferred from the National Theatre to the West End.
The 68-year-old actor, writer and TV presenter, becomes a 6ft 5in taffeta tank as Wilde’s memorably scathing widow.
Like a Challenger 2, Fry’s head swivels under the cupola of his bonnet, shooting immaculate aphorisms – ‘To lose one parent is a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness!’ being just one of the best known.
Fry replaces Sharon D Clarke, who made a formidable and vividly-costumed Jamaican matriarch in the National’s original production.
Where Clarke’s performance had an audaciously subversive touch, Fry is more conservative.
Yet he keeps his character grounded in Wilde’s unimprovable wit and is careful not to cheapen her as a panto dame.
Stephen Fry plays Lady Bracknell in the gloriously frivolous and endlessly quotable romcom, The Importance Of Being Earnest
The 68-year-old actor, writer and TV presenter, becomes a 6ft 5in taffeta tank as Wilde’s memorably scathing widow
Not all the changes are as successful, and Ncuti Gatwa’s former leading man about town, Algernon Moncreiff, was always going to be a hard act to follow.
Popstar Olly Alexander, from Years & Years, now plays Algie with boyish zip, but some of his gags fail to land and he misses Gatwa’s megawatt charisma.
Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Algie’s best friend Jack (famously misplaced in a handbag as a baby), is skittishly anxious in his desperate pursuit of Lady B’s randy daughter, Gwendolen (impishly played by Kitty Hawthorne).
And there’s a nice turn from Hayley Carmichael as a tiny, frail butler who seems to have dangerously low oxygen levels.
Max Webster’s joyous production remains book-ended with an LGBTQ+ pageant which adds needless flummery to an immaculately constructed plot.
But the clashing colours of Rae Smith’s design, including a cream and gold trimmed Victorian drawing room, psychedelic country garden and an erotically-statued stately home, make the 130-year-old play feel like it was written yesterday.
