DramaNorth East & YorkshireReview

The Importance of Being… Earnest? – Darlington Hippodrome

Reviewer: Mark Clegg

Director: Simon Paris

Writers: Joshua King, Simon Paris & Say It Again, Sorry?

Based on the Play by: Oscar Wilde

Oscar’s Wilde’s celebrated farcical comedy of manners from 1895 gets a tongue-in-cheek makeover in the form of this interactive reinterpretation, which keeps all of the traditional settings and costumes, but then hands over the reins to the audience – sort of.

We open with a pretty standard staging of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest – albeit a production that already seems plagued with bad direction and hammy acting. The problems arise once the title character fails to enter the stage on cue. It is at this point that the director Simon (Josh Haberfield) appears and decides that the only way the play can continue is with a member of the audience taking on the role of Ernest. And so they do.

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Anyone who has seen The Play That Goes Wrong will immediately understand the tone of this show, as actors portraying actors portraying characters get increasingly frustrated as the production disintegrates around them. The cast all deliver this well, and the script (which almost the entire company are credited as having a hand in) cleverly sets up sections where the audience member (soon joined by others) can be put on the spot without in reality having much of an effect on the overall production.

Guido Garcia Lueches as an effete Algernon who is unable to improvise provides some of the biggest laughs as he robotically delivers his lines and proceeds with his stage blocking despite the chaos that is going on around him. Rhys Tees is also excellent especially when called upon to begrudgingly play multiple roles of a butler, governess and priest –leading to some extremely impressive quick changes. Trynity Silk flounces around the stage as Gwendolen, but really steals the show as she starts to become progressively more drunk when the stage teapot is filled with bourbon, and Judith Amsenga plays a diva-ish Lady Bracknell with a fondness for the bottle.

The central idea of The Importance of Being… Earnest? is a clever one, although it is debatable whether it is enough to carry a full-length play. Bringing the first audience member virtually straight on stage does mean that the joke wears thin as the runtime goes on, and the show always risks recruiting unsuitable volunteers: although those chosen at this performance delivered admirably. Also, some gags are overly laboured including a line that the Algernon and the volunteer must deliver in synch being repeated ad nauseam, and Lady Bracknell’s attempts to prompt Earnest to set up the famous handbag line with a long sequence of over-the-top mime. It’s understood that these are required to continue until the volunteer gets it right, but the script should perhaps have escape routes written in for when this doesn’t happen quickly enough.

The Fringe roots of this production are evident, not only with the central premise, but also with the relatively cheap looking set and costumes. Say It Again, Sorry? show great potential as a comedy troupe, and hopefully this tour will prove successful enough to allow them to not only invest in these things, but also allow them to sharpen the script to point where it doesn’t feel like a drawn out improv sketch.

Runs until 18th May 2024

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The Yorkshire & North East team is under the editorship of Jacob Bush. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.

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