Theatre review: The Importance of Being Earnest, Perth Theatre

In troubling times, two-and-a-half hours of pure joy; it’s what you need, and what you’ll find, if you make your way to Perth Theatre for this hugely entertaining new production, by artistic director Lu Kemp, of Oscar Wilde’s mighty 1895 comic classic.

Perth Theatre's new version of The Importance Of Being Earnest is performed with passion, wit and love.

The Importance of Being Earnest, Perth Theatre ****



Built around the timeless themes of love, money and human snobbery, Wilde’s satire burns as brightly as ever on the Perth stage, thanks in part to a superbly simple and effective design by Jamie Vartan – platform stage, grand piano, some display shelves that slide on stage-side whenever required – and stunning lighting effects by Ben Ormerod.


The main driving forces behind the production, though, are Kemp’s hugely ingenious version of the play for just five actors and the sheer energy and brilliance of her brilliantly chosen Scottish company, led by Karen Dunbar as a terrifying Kelvinside Lady Bracknell.


The small cast requires some hilarious doubling and trebling of roles that only adds to the high artifice of the comedy; Wilde himself might have enjoyed the spectacle of Daniel Cahill playing both our hero Jack Worthing and his friend Algernon’s butler Lane in the opening scene or Caroline Deyga’s superb final-act alternations between the distraught governess, Miss Prism, and the ever-poised Miss Gwendolen Fairfax.


As for the cast, well, their vivid new take on the story is not all about perfection; on its gala opening night the play began in slightly subdued style – with Dunbar seeming almost afraid to play some of British theatre’s most comic lines for laughs – only to explode into glorious hilarity in the second act, set at Jack’s country house, and to end with a rousing chorus of I Am What I Am that cocks a lively snook at whatever gender politics we care to read into Wilde’s famously ambiguous play.


The cast could probably afford to lean a little harder on his satirical view of the British ruling class, which seems as relevant as ever; and Deyga’s fine Gwendolen, as a young lady “out” in society, absolutely requires an up-do and a hat.


With Dunbar warming to her task as an increasingly complex Lady Bracknell, though, Grant O’Rourke in breathtakingly fine form as a muffin-eating posh-Scottish Algernon and Amy Kennedy completing the team as a superbly self-mocking Cecily, this fine company demonstrate with huge flair that Wilde’s comedy need not be stuck in a straitjacket of familiar voice and staging but can be opened up and reimagined in a dozen exhilarating ways, so long as those great central themes of love and money remain firmly in view and are played out with passion, wit, and love.


Until 21 March