By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN? Saturday 28 September 2025, runs through 10 January 2026 RUNTIME: 165 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Stephen Fry returns to the West End stage as Lady Bracknell for the 1st time since being nominated for a Tony for his Malvolio in 2012’s Twelfth Night and appearing as The Narrator in the Rocky Horror Show in 2015.

• Read on for reasons including how if you’re having half as much fun as they are onstage, you’ll be having 1 of the best nights of your life

His Lady Bracknell is imperious, gruff, word perfect and very much in keeping with this National Theatre production of arguably Oscar Wilde’s most popular comedy which won our 2024 Best Revival monsta.

Unusually the cast has changed almost entirely from the show’s debut run but it seems fitting that Olly Alexander replaces Ncuti Gatwa as Algernon not least because we 1st saw him treading the boards at this very venue in 2013 opposite Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw in Peter And Alice.

Apart from the cast changes fans of the original revival will breathe a sigh of relief that the extremely high camp aesthetic of the show remains intact and Alexander can be proud that his Algernon remains very much the show’s gender-bending heart.

Algernon’s partner in crime is Jack Worthing, now played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, who impresses as both his friend’s moral compass and future beau, named Ernest of course, for Algernon’s unbending cousin Gwendolen.

There’s a great chemistry between Kitty Hawthorne’s Gwendolen and Jessica Whitehurst as Jack’s ward Cecily and they’re having so much fun during a scene featuring multiple sugar lumps in tea and a giant cake that their struggling not to laugh is infectious.

Hugh Dennis will be familiar to TV viewers as Dr Chasuble and both he and Shobna Gulati (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie) as Cecily’s governess Miss Prism do much with the little time devoted to them to ramp up the comedy.

We said of Max Webster’s original production of Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest that it was ‘exquisitely cast, perfectly judged and executed with both swagger and flamboyance’ and that description still rings true.

Usually a West End transfer would mean a larger stage but the National’s Lyttelton Theatre where this revival started its life seemed bigger than the Noel Coward which it now finds itself in.

But this version of The Importance Of Being Earnest remains a delightful confection poking fun at Victorian conformity while boasting some of the funniest comic lines and put-downs and Fry’s joyful appearance lends it real star power.

If you’re having half as much fun as they are onstage, you’ll be having 1 of the best nights of your life.

• Main pictures by The Importance Of Being Earnest via Facebook courtesy DMT Tickets
• Have you seen an Oscar Wilde show before and what did you think of this production? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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