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More so than anything by that Shakespeare chap,‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ can surely lay claim to being the single most influential British play ever written. Not necessarily because of its influence on theatre, but because it’s almost impossible to imagine a single English sitcom of the last century existing without its mix of finely-crafted farce, sardonic fascination with class and camp, sexless romantic intriguing.
This is also the main problem with Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece: finely-crafted and funny doesn’t mean deep, and though it gets staged a lot, it doesn’t reward repeat viewings any more than that episode of ‘Only Fool and Horses’ where Del Boy falls through the bar.
Nope: as the great Irish wit wouldn’t have said, you need a USP if you’re going to do ‘…Earnest’ in earnest, and Adrian Noble’s production most certainly has one. It’s David Suchet, dragged up as battle-axe matriarch Lady Bracknell: i.e., it’s Poirot in a dress. The man is clearly having an indecent amount of fun with his wantonly hammy but entirely irresistible performance: a mass of waspish tics and beautifully detailed vocal affectations – a rising squeak; a very indecorous pronunciation of the word ‘country’ – that stays just the right side of pantomime dame. It is enormously silly, but played entirely straight, and one senses he has a measure of respect for the pompous, scheming old bat.
But why just the one dragged performer? Noble’s production is disappointingly limited in its transgressions, and there’s simply nothing to fill the larger-than-life void left by Suchet when he’s offstage. With her cartoonishly breathy voice and scrunched up face, Imogen Doel is a proper hoot as naive young Cicely, and goes some way to keep the energy levels up during the Bracknell-free second act. But in all other respects this feels like business as usual, far more concerned with the convoluted romantic exploits of Jack (Michael Benz) and Algernon (Philip Cumbus) than the fearsome woman who holds their fates in the balance. Yes to more Suchet in drag – but no to any more productions of this play any time soon, please.