The Importance of Being Earnest - Swan Theatre, Worcester

9:44am Wednesday 8th October 2008

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“IF I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated,” - Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece of wit still overflows with charm and wonderful one-liners.

The Swan Theatre Amateur Company’s (STAC) capable cast did not add anything fresh to this three-act play, but did not take anything away either.

In a straight forward production, Wilde’s flighty women - Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax - impressed the most.

Kathryn Bellamy, who previously donned period costume in STAC’s heartwarming version of Coward’s Private Lives, was a feisty Gwendolen, who demanded attention and swayed across the stage as if she owned it. Opposite Sophie McLellan’s Cecily in the garden scene she shone with aristocratic outrage -“Detestable girl, but I require tea!”.

McLellan too, as the eccentric dreamer enthralled by Uncle Jack’s ‘wicked’ brother Ernest, eclipsed the boys. She was, more than I had realised before, the female counterpart of Wilde’s hedonistic Algernon Moncrieff.

Simon Atkins and Christopher Broadfield were well suited to play Jack Worthing and Moncrieff, respectively, while John Horton and Pauline Lowe were a divine pairing as Miss Prism and Dr Chasuble.

Lady Bracknell, however, lacked bite. Patricia Hobday is certainly talented and spat many of wicked aristocrat’s lines out with pleasurable spite, but was too smiling and kind to instil any real fear.

The set, all pastel green and period furniture, was apt, but it was Wilde’s words that stole the show.

The Importance of Being Earnest runs at the Swan Theatre until Saturday, October 11.