Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
4 stars
All is not what it seems in Mark Thomson’s production of Oscar Wilde’s comic stab at a fin de siecle play, as what appears to be a high-camp baroque romp along the twists and turns of courtship among the upper classes turns out to be a frippish exploration of artifice, identity and the perils of reinvention. Nowhere is this served up better than in an elaborate between-act costume change as Steven McNicoll is transformed from deadpan town butler Merriman to the similarly styled country house servant Lane. It’s a show-stealing conceit in what looks like one of the most vivid renderings of Wilde’s play for some years.
The die is cast from the off via Algernon and Jack’s propensities for deception to get them off the hook from tiresome social obligations via something Algie dubs ‘Bunburying.’ As an orphan not sure where he fits in with the social order, at least Ben Deery’s Jack has an excuse for taking on the fresh identity of his roister-doistering imaginary brother. Fantasy role-playing isn’t confined to the gadabout boys, however. Melody Grove’s Gwendolyn is a knowing tease alive to the possibilities to secret assignations, while Kirsty Mackay’s Cecily is a fantasist who confides a panting engagement to Earnest to her diary long before she’s actually met him.
With every little excitable flurry punctuated by brief little passages of Palm Court style strings, Alexandra Mathie looks positively papal as Lady Bracknell, and if it could sometimes benefit from some critical bite, it’s nevertheless a revelation of inter-personal social engineering that keeps things firmly in the family in a gloriously superficial piece of serious fun.
The Herald, October 25th 2010
ends
4 stars
All is not what it seems in Mark Thomson’s production of Oscar Wilde’s comic stab at a fin de siecle play, as what appears to be a high-camp baroque romp along the twists and turns of courtship among the upper classes turns out to be a frippish exploration of artifice, identity and the perils of reinvention. Nowhere is this served up better than in an elaborate between-act costume change as Steven McNicoll is transformed from deadpan town butler Merriman to the similarly styled country house servant Lane. It’s a show-stealing conceit in what looks like one of the most vivid renderings of Wilde’s play for some years.
The die is cast from the off via Algernon and Jack’s propensities for deception to get them off the hook from tiresome social obligations via something Algie dubs ‘Bunburying.’ As an orphan not sure where he fits in with the social order, at least Ben Deery’s Jack has an excuse for taking on the fresh identity of his roister-doistering imaginary brother. Fantasy role-playing isn’t confined to the gadabout boys, however. Melody Grove’s Gwendolyn is a knowing tease alive to the possibilities to secret assignations, while Kirsty Mackay’s Cecily is a fantasist who confides a panting engagement to Earnest to her diary long before she’s actually met him.
With every little excitable flurry punctuated by brief little passages of Palm Court style strings, Alexandra Mathie looks positively papal as Lady Bracknell, and if it could sometimes benefit from some critical bite, it’s nevertheless a revelation of inter-personal social engineering that keeps things firmly in the family in a gloriously superficial piece of serious fun.
The Herald, October 25th 2010
ends
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