By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Friday 22 November 2024, opens 28 November and runs through 25 January 2025 RUNTIME: 165 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Oscar Wilde described this – his final and best loved play – as ‘exquisitely trivial’ and this production is exquisitely cast, perfectly judged and executed with both swagger and flamboyance.

• Read on for reasons including how this is currently London’s funniest comedy

Wilde wrote zinger after zinger in this 1895 classic about 2 friends who lead double lives to woo women who long to marry a man by the, almost, titular name of E(a)rnest.

Director Max Webster (Minority Report, Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith) gives us a proscenium arch the Lyttelton Theatre does not naturally have with a handbag, referencing perhaps the show’s most famous line, suspended in the air between red curtains at the show’s opening setting the tone for what is to follow.

There are 3 short additional scenes which punctuate the action and in the opener new Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa as cad Algernon Moncrieff plays the piano in a scarlet dress and heels before dancing on top of it.

We meet Moncrieff’s friend Ernest Worthing, Hugh Skinner (The Trial, Young Vic and film Wicked Little Letters) having an absolute ball breaking the 4th wall, who confesses to assuming the name Ernest in town when wooing Gwendolen Fairfax when he is actually called Jack while living in the country and looking after his ward ‘little Cecily’.

In the 2nd act Algernon surprises Jack by arriving unannounced at his country home pretending to be his brother Ernest and taking a shine to Cecily (sample line: ‘I remember only too well that I was forced to write your letters for you. I wrote always three times a week, and sometimes oftener.’) given real gumption by Eliza Scanlen.

Later Gwendolen (sample zinger: ‘I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.’) is brought vividly to life by Ronke Adekoluejo as she arrives in the country and, although set in the period written, occasionally the actors freestyle with adlibs or modern mannerisms which may irk traditionalists but go down a storm with this enthusiastic preview audience.

Best Theatre Actress monsta winner Sharon D Clarke (Caroline, Or Change?, Hampstead Theatre and TV’s Lost Boys and Fairies) has the show’s best known zinger (‘A handbag? … To be born, or at any rate bred, in a handbag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.’) and doesn’t disappoint as the imperious Lady Bracknell questioning the would-be couples.

Special mention also to Richard Cant (Orlando, Garrick Theatre) as the Reverend Chasuble, called Dr Chasuble here perhaps to remind of the best known TV role of the show’s undoubted star, Julian Bleach as comedy butlers and Amanda Lawrence as governess Miss Prism who excel in supporting roles.

We studied Earnest at college and wished we’d seen a production of it as vividly, lovingly and hilariously brought to life as this 1.

Purists may bristle at the occasional additional word or camp scene fleshing out the depths below the surface of Wilde’s masterpiece but for us it just proved how we’ve never seen a better Earnest than this.

Gatwa is a comic revelation as Algernon and fans of his TV work including Sex Education will doubtless find much to tickle their ribs here.

There’s strong competition for London’s funniest comedy currently including Dr Strangelove and Juno And The Paycock, which closes tonight, but we think Earnest just trumped them all.

• Main pictures via Facebook by Marc Brenner courtesy National Theatre Tickets
• Have you seen a National Theatre show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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