The Importance of being Earnest: Birmingham New Alex.
Well that was different. I suppose it had to be given that the lead actors: Rosalind Ayres, Niall Buggy, Patrick Godfrey, Nigel Havers, Martin Jarvis, Christine Kavanagh, Cherie Lunghi and Siân Phillips are all somewhat older (by about 30 years!) than the characters they play; that was to be expected. So, instead of playing it straight, last night’s performance of “The Importance of Being Earnest” was staged as a “play within a play.”
Did it work? Well to a degree it did, although people like me who had seen it before were somewhat confused at the start when instead of heading straight into the play, we had the “Bunbury Company Players” setting the scene with jokes about cucumber sandwiches and dead former company members…. Most strange. And rather disappointingly, the need to end the play within the play by adding a number of lines on after the final and main joke: a joke on which the whole play is based, crashed the ending for me.
Overall, while Wilde’s play stands the test of time, the reimagining of it as a play within a play simply to allow the casting, felt a little, hum, not right. I suppose my slight reluctance to accept the changes stem from the fact that it is often impossible to improve what the writer wrote (although I suppose that is the job of the director/producer) while staging plays away from their historic setting (like as happened at Stafford Castle this year where a Shakespeare play was set in the Cold War…. I mean…?) often doesn’t work for me.
Sorry, this is rather rambling and no doubt it makes no sense.
Plus points…. £10 to sit in the fifth row of the stools (slightly off centre: we could see 90% of the stage) is great value, while getting to and from the New Alex in Birmingham is really easy.
Would I recommend this staging…well yes, if you like a laugh but don’t expect it to be played straight like the film or the West End staging some 6 odd years ago.