Last updated 05:34, Friday, 25 July 2008

The Importance Of Being Earnest, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick Having reviewed Oscar Wilde’s classic at least half a dozen times, I wondered just how the company would find anything fresh in this latest production.

In fact, director Ian Forrest and an excellent cast pulled it off splendidly with a mixture of delicious comedy and some outstanding characterisations.

There was all of Wilde’s sculpted prose with its brilliant commentary on the morals of Victorian times. But this elegant yet pacey production offered just that bit more.

Two eligible bachelors adopt the pseudonym Ernest to conduct their romantic assignations but, predictably, it is not long before their duplicity finds them out.

Andrew Pollard’s Jack Worthing hypocritically flouts his conventional values while Matthew Vaughan, as Algernon, is charming, selfish and amoral.

It is very much a comedy of manners in which Wilde’s strong female characters rise to the surface.

Gwendolen, played by Amy Humphreys, is definitely a chip off the old block, the old block in this case being her formidable mother, Lady Bracknell (Sara Coward).

Cecily (Krissi Bohn), Worthing’s ward, has created a fantasy diary world around Ernest and is an innocent pink rose with just the right amount of thorns.

There are also amusing cameo roles from David Ericsson as Canon Chasuble, Dinah Handley as a rather dotty Miss Prism and Peter Rylands playing two world-weary servants.

Imperious through it all is Lady Bracknell, sweeping across the stage in her vivid purple dress and feathered hat, always with an eye on the cash.

The Importance of Being Earnest is the showpiece of the Main House season and those who enjoy Wilde‘s skill and acid wit will not be disappointed.

ROSS BREWSTER