Now Showing- The Importance Of Being Earnest

 Nigel Havers and Christine Kavanagh

Review: the-news.co says;

Absolutely brilliant! Nigel Havers and Sian Phillips have honed their acting skills to perfection. The cast filled the stage with laughter and had the audience warming to them right through the play. The new script was a novel approach but did nothing to distract from Oscar Wilde’s original. It was good, very good.

The middle aged cast were highly experienced and able to blend together effortlessly. Martin Jarvis gave a particularly fine performance as John Worthing.

The first act ran for 70 minutes followed by a 15 minute interval and 55 minute second half with us getting away just after 10pm.

All in all one of the best performances we have seen at Theatre Royal Brighton in a long time. Well done!

Mon 29 Sep – Sat 4 Oct

Eves 7.45pm
Thu & Sat mats
2.30pm

The Importance of Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde

Also starring

ROSALIND AYRES, NIALL BUGGY, PATRICK GODFREY,
,MARTIN JARVIS, CHRISTINE KAVANAGH, and CHERIE LUNGHI

A new production of Oscar Wilde’s brilliant comic masterpiece, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, visits Theatre Royal Brighton for one week only from Monday 29 Sep – Sat 4 Oct direct from the West End.

Dubbed by Oscar Wilde ‘a trivial comedy for serious people’, the production takes this sentiment to heart and delivers an entirely faithful, but nonetheless unique, setting to one of the greatest theatrical comedies.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST elegantly lampoons the hypocrisies of Victorian society and opens as two bachelors, the dependable, John Worthing, J.P. (Martin Jarvis) and upper class playboy Algernon Moncrieff (Nigel Havers), feel compelled to create different identities in order to pursue two eligible ladies Cecily Cardew (Christine Kavanagh) and Gwendolyn Fairfax (Cherie Lunghi). The hilarious misadventures which result from their subterfuge; their brushes with the redoubtable Lady Bracknell (Siân Phillips) and the uptight Miss Prism (Rosalind Ayres) result in a plot that twists and fizzles with some of the finest dialogue to be found in theatre.

Acclaimed comic novelist, Simon Brett, has been commissioned to create an original new context for the play with designs by the innovative leading theatre designer William Dudley.

To bring Wilde’s genius afresh to a new audience, the producer, Rupert Gavin, and director, Lucy Bailey, have assembled The Bunbury Company of Players, a star studded and extremely experienced cast of serious comedic actors. As Lady Bracknell says in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
‘London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.’

Rupert Gavin, producer for Incidental Colman, said “We have drawn together an exceptional creative team, a group of brilliant comedic actors, and we bring of course, a twist to proceedings, that you would only expect of us.”

Nigel Havers and Martin Jarvis revisit the roles of Algernon Moncrieff and John Worthing, J.P respectively having played these parts in Sir Peter Hall’s 1982 production of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at the National Theatre. Siân Phillips joins them to play Lady Bracknell, having recently performed the role to excellent reviews in Washington. The notable cast also includes Rosalind Ayres, Niall Buggy, Christine Kavanagh, Cherie Lunghi and Patrick Godfrey, who also played Merriman in the 2002 film adaption of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

Lucy Bailey, Director, said “I was lucky enough as a student, to be allowed to observe rehearsals of Peter Hall’s THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
at the National Theatre in the early 80’s. I remember watching Nigel Havers and Martin Jarvis wrestle over cucumber sandwiches and being entranced by their charm and playfulness. When they approached me, some 30 years later, to work with them on a new production, I just couldn’t resist! We have created a new framework for the play, aided and abetted by the writer Simon Brett and designer William Dudley. We have gathered together an exquisite acting ensemble to take on the challenge of Oscar Wilde’s most popular and daring play.”

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