June 11, 2008
This was a suitably light-hearted production of perhaps the perfect play for a June evening in a beautiful garden. It’s simply no good going to see this play in the hope of seeing something original, that will reveal unexpected depths – it just ain't gonna happen. What’s more, that isn’t why audiences go and see it. They don’t want a novel interpretation – they want what they’ve always had from it: the famous bon-mots, the sparkling, slightly perverse repartee, the unconventional attitudes that have come to fit us like a second skin but were bold and risqué in 1895, the delicious symmetry, the thrilling confrontations, the satisfactory undeceivings. Witness to this was the almost full house on last night’s first night. All one asks is that it is well done. And this one was, on the whole, very well done.
The staging was excellent; the first and third acts were situated under the spreading boughs of the majestic giant sycamore in Merton gardens, and for the second act the audience were politely implored to turn their chairs around and face in the opposite direction, much to the delight of those who arrived late and got seats in the back row. The cast, who were all extremely attractive, and some of whom were genuinely posh, were very good, and the principals were splendid: Krishna Omkar made a handsome, rather rakish, ever so slightly camp Algy (but it’s hard not to camp up Algy), who not only had the requisite bored upper-class drawl, but a thoroughly charming naughtiness and the perfect eyebrows for the part; Timmy Pleydell-Bouverie was an excellent foil to him as a delightfully stuffy Jack. Isabel Drury decided not to play Gwendolen as a younger version of her formidable mother – though the play does beautifully suit this interpretation – but went for kittenish, which may have been a mistake, because she was comprehensively out-kittened by the amazing Melissa Oppenheim as Cecily. I spent the first few minutes of Act II wondering why she looked so familiar and finally concluded that it was the look she was giving Algy – a self-consciously irresistible coquettish upwards glance, where the eyes are saying Take me, take me, and the mouth has the infuriating close, secret smile of archaic Greek statues. In fact, she was incredibly reminiscent of the divine Joan Greenwood (who played Gwendolen in the classic 1952 movie) though actually she looks much more like Fenella Fielding. Anyway, I shall watch her career with interest. And I must also commend Flossie Draper (last seen as the maid Trusty in The Clandestine Marriage), who was effortlessly commanding and magnificent as Lady Bracknell. She is a proper actress, who acts with her whole body as well as with her face and voice. I will also mention the other cast members, as they were not mentioned on the flyer – Arabella Lawson as an incredibly stressed Miss Prism, Henry Thorogood as Dr Chasuble, a delightful comic turn in which he appears lost in his costume like a little boy wearing grown-up clothes, except for his huge, nervous, mobile hands, Patrick Driver as Lane and Phil Aherne as Merriman, respectively smug and confused.
The true measure of how well they had done was that when it came on to rain half-way through Act III, not one of the audience moved from the spot – we just put on scarves or hoods – we couldn’t bear to be parted from it.
The staging was excellent; the first and third acts were situated under the spreading boughs of the majestic giant sycamore in Merton gardens, and for the second act the audience were politely implored to turn their chairs around and face in the opposite direction, much to the delight of those who arrived late and got seats in the back row. The cast, who were all extremely attractive, and some of whom were genuinely posh, were very good, and the principals were splendid: Krishna Omkar made a handsome, rather rakish, ever so slightly camp Algy (but it’s hard not to camp up Algy), who not only had the requisite bored upper-class drawl, but a thoroughly charming naughtiness and the perfect eyebrows for the part; Timmy Pleydell-Bouverie was an excellent foil to him as a delightfully stuffy Jack. Isabel Drury decided not to play Gwendolen as a younger version of her formidable mother – though the play does beautifully suit this interpretation – but went for kittenish, which may have been a mistake, because she was comprehensively out-kittened by the amazing Melissa Oppenheim as Cecily. I spent the first few minutes of Act II wondering why she looked so familiar and finally concluded that it was the look she was giving Algy – a self-consciously irresistible coquettish upwards glance, where the eyes are saying Take me, take me, and the mouth has the infuriating close, secret smile of archaic Greek statues. In fact, she was incredibly reminiscent of the divine Joan Greenwood (who played Gwendolen in the classic 1952 movie) though actually she looks much more like Fenella Fielding. Anyway, I shall watch her career with interest. And I must also commend Flossie Draper (last seen as the maid Trusty in The Clandestine Marriage), who was effortlessly commanding and magnificent as Lady Bracknell. She is a proper actress, who acts with her whole body as well as with her face and voice. I will also mention the other cast members, as they were not mentioned on the flyer – Arabella Lawson as an incredibly stressed Miss Prism, Henry Thorogood as Dr Chasuble, a delightful comic turn in which he appears lost in his costume like a little boy wearing grown-up clothes, except for his huge, nervous, mobile hands, Patrick Driver as Lane and Phil Aherne as Merriman, respectively smug and confused.
The true measure of how well they had done was that when it came on to rain half-way through Act III, not one of the audience moved from the spot – we just put on scarves or hoods – we couldn’t bear to be parted from it.