Synopsis

Oscar Wilde’s enduring literary masterpiece, arguably one of the most famous and best loved British plays of all time, is given the Lovelace treatment here, as we are proud to present a sparkling and witty production of “The Importance of being Earnest”

Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff are wealthy, languid, carefree bachelors, when our play opens in the heart of late Victorian London. Jack reluctantly confesses to his friend that he is, in fact, leading a double life where he is “Jack in the Country and Ernest in the town”; a lifestyle he orchestrates so that he can do as he pleases.

Tasked with being the guardian of 18 year old Cecily Cardew, who is cared for in her rambling Hertfordshire country mansion by her governess, Miss Prism, Jack invents a wicked brother called Ernest, whom he claims to visit regularly in London, ostensibly to spend time with his friend Algernon and Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolen, with whom he is passionately in love. Algernon, meanwhile, leads his own (albeit gentler) double life, inventing an invalid friend named Bunbury, expressly created so that he can “visit” him and so avoid duty-led engagements with his Aunt Augusta, the foreboding Lady Bracknell, who is also Gwendolen’s mother.

A series of untruths, fantasies and decoy fabricated stories, leads the full ensemble to Jack’s country home, where misunderstandings abound, fiancés are found, lost and found again, friendships are forged, destroyed and re-forged, and where Jack’s past and present untruths unravel in such a way that the lives and happiness of almost everyone involved, hang by a thread.

Details

• Peformance Times
• Thu 21 May 7.30pm
• Fri 22 May 7.30pm
• Sat 23 May 7.30pm