The Importance of Being Earnest (Noël Coward Theatre, West End) – ★★★★ Review

MickeyJoTheatre Podcast, October 9, 2025
Host: Mickey Jo

Main Theme / Purpose

Mickey Jo delivers an in-depth, spirited review of the West End transfer of the National Theatre’s revival of Oscar Wilde’s "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Noël Coward Theatre, focusing on its “inherent queer feeling,” standout performances—particularly Stephen Fry as Lady Bracknell—and the creative direction that gives Wilde’s classic a new, flamboyant twist. The review explores casting, direction, design, tone, and the fresh energy brought to this iconic comedy of manners.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Overview and Context

• Oscar Wilde’s Enduring Wit: Wilde’s text is celebrated for its clever, largely insincere musings on life, “filled with all of these witty musings on life… but the majority of which are largely insincere.” (03:30–04:10)
• Plot Recap: Mickey Jo provides a detailed plot summary, emphasizing themes of mistaken identity, romance, and societal expectations.
• Historic Popularity in the UK: The play’s “fond familiarity” allows for reinterpretation, parody, and bold creative choices.

2. Production’s Distinctive Tone: Queerness and Camp

• Queer Sensibility:

  • The new production, directed by Max Webster, “is infused with a queer sensibility throughout... the homosexual quality here is now far from latent. There are longing looks, there are flamboyant presentations, there are colourful characterizations.” (08:20–09:15)
  • Not just present in a drag Lady Bracknell but “baked into these characters rather than a sauce they are swimming in.”
  • Humorous speculation: “This quartet of young lovers are about to simultaneously discover five minutes after the action of the play that they are in fact all gay for each other, close familial proximity notwithstanding. Listen, it was a different time. It was like gay. No cousins. Fine.” (09:30)

• Not a Classic Queer Recontextualization, But a ‘Queer Reduction’:

  • “Instead of a recontextualization or reinterpretation, this feels like a queer reduction… pouring gayness all over the thing and then boiling it and allowing it to evaporate, leaving an infusion of queer character in every facet.” (09:00–09:15)

3. Casting and Performances

Stephen Fry as Lady Bracknell

• Drag Tradition & Expectations:
  • From Sharon D. Clarke to Stephen Fry is "a sharp enough left turn to send us careering around a country bend." (02:30)
  • Mickey Jo recognizes the tradition of casting men in this iconic role (“David Suchet… Brian Bedford...”, “so traditional it borders on cliché”) but finds Fry’s take fresh in its sincerity and subtlety.
• Performance Quality:
  • “Stephen’s Lady Bracknell is at every turn elegant, but equally insistent and impatient... intimidating, and commanding, but without booming or boldness.” (11:40–12:10)
  • The famous “A handbag?” line: “The line eventually arrives with surprisingly few fireworks. The line is not excessively milked by Stephen Fry. He is not amping it up like a sort of pantomime dame. The role is played ironically in earnest, but the delivery of that line is characterized with an astonishment that gives rise to an annoyance. Lady Bracknell is uneasy and perturbed by this revelation. So the subtext... now becomes one of shame and disgust, which is very well played.” (~13:30)

Oli Alexander as Algernon Moncrief

• Standout Performance:
  • “The unparalleled star of this production. I think he's absolutely extraordinary in this role.” (15:15)
  • Introduction on stage: “First person revealed… in a glamorous, flamboyant and voluminous pink outfit, sort of familiar of Marilyn Monroe... playing at a piano and then comically not playing at the piano, visibly miming.”
  • Alexander’s Algernon is “deliciously devious and utterly unashamed and unapologetic… could shamelessly and under false pretenses pursue a naïve young woman and do so so charmingly and so overtly camperly as well, but grinning like the Cheshire cat if he were a twink in a gay bar smoking area.” (15:45–16:15)

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Jack Worthing

• “Terrific alongside [Alexander]… a real sweetness to his bumbling and hopeless but well-intentioned and desperately romantic nature.”
• Queer undertones: “Jack Worthing… feels more like a quietly closeted queer man who has yet to really come to terms with his own identity.”
• Their friendship on stage hints at more than platonic: “There's a suggestion of a deepened relationship between the two of them and something else that might be going on there.” (17:30)

Kitty Hawthorne (Gwendolyn Fairfax) & Jessica Whitehurst (Cecily Cardew)

• Both bring “contemporary vitality” and overtly queer chemistry.
• Hawthorne’s Gwendolyn: “Neither wistful nor naive, but instead what I can only describe as thirsty…. eager to pursue this relationship… visibly eager.” (19:50)
• Whitehurst’s Cecily: From intelligent Cyrano to “petulant and insistent young girl,” emphasizing stubbornness and humor.
• Their rivalry becomes “effervescent," underlined by physical comedy—a repeated joke about Gwendolyn struggling with a tiny grassy incline: “this hysterical physical comedy send-up of privilege and entitlement and wealth.”
• Their dynamic: “The two women who are meant to just be catty rivals are suddenly staring into each other's eyes as if they might kiss at any moment.” (22:45)

Notable Supporting Roles

• Hayley Carmichael as the Button Butlers (Merriman/Lane):
  • "Scene stealingly and side splittingly funny… walk onto the stage once every five to seven minutes and utterly tear the audience’s focus away... and deliver hysterical physical comedy gold.”
  • Comparison: “Tom Eddins’ breakthrough performance in ‘One Man, Two Governors,’ as the geriatric waiter…” (21:20)
• Hugh Dennis (Rev. Chasuble) & Shobna Gulati (Miss Prism): solid comedic support.

4. Direction, Design, and Staging

Max Webster’s Direction

• Webster’s touch enables overt camp and underlying sincerity:
  • “Created something fun and frothy and pink and gorgeous.”
  • “The voice of Oscar Wilde can be heard so clearly in it, sort of works to have that sensibility running through the thing.” (09:50)
• Balances “classic sensibility while offering a contemporary perspective and a little bit of humor. It's a little campy, it's a little queer.”

Design Elements

• Rae Smith (Set & Costume):
  • “Completely stunning… The costumes were all completely stunning. Honestly, I’d wear half of these clothes.” (23:45)
  • A “three-tiered afternoon tea tray filled with... delicious French fondant fancies.”
• Choreography and Movement:
  • Curtain call: “Extended, joyous curtain call sequence… extravagant… inherently queer… a fusion between carnival and traditional British pantomime walk down.” (22:45)
  • “Signals to the audience that they are allowed to take utter delight in this.”

Physical and Vocal Coaches

• Physical comedy advisor: Joyce Henderson
• Voice and dialect: Kate Godfrey
• Intimacy: Ingrid McKinnon
• Movement: Carrie Anne Hingre (of "Six" fame)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I like my Oscar world like I like my cups of tea: a sort of pink, reddish hue, and gay as hell. Oh my god.” (00:30)
• “It almost feels like a pair of two idyllic lavender marriages waiting to happen.” (09:00)
• On Fry’s “A handbag?”: “The line is not excessively milked by Stephen Fry. He is not amping it up like a pantomime dame. The role is played, ironically, in earnest.” (13:25)
• “Olli Alexander manages to seduce the entire audience enough to make this performance utterly convincing. And captiv[ates] so well suited to this material and to the delivery of all of this Oscar Wilde dialogue. He’s great in this.” (16:20)
• “The costumes were all completely stunning. Honestly, I’d wear half of these clothes.” (23:45)
• “This is an Importance of Being Earnest that breaks a lot of the rules and does so thrillingly and unapologetically and delightfully… tongue in cheek, both cheeks, in fact. Multiple tongues, multiple cheeks.” (22:50)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:30 — Opening thoughts, tone, and context for reviewing this production
• 03:30–05:30 — Plot overview and Oscar Wilde’s wit
• 08:20–09:15 — Director Max Webster’s queer inflection
• 11:20–14:00 — Stephen Fry’s Lady Bracknell performance
• 15:15–16:40 — Olli Alexander’s standout Algernon
• 17:30–20:00 — Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Hawthorne, and Whitehurst on queer undertones
• 21:20–22:00 — Hayley Carmichael’s scene-stealing Butler roles
• 22:45–24:30 — Curtain call, design flourishes, overall impact

Overall Tone and Takeaway

Mickey Jo’s review is witty, energetic, and candid—mirroring Wildean theatricality, with a blend of high camp and deep affection for the material. The production is lauded for making queerness explicit and joyous, for its playful subversion of tradition, and for performances that sparkle with contemporary relevance and comedic brio.

Final recommendation: “Go and see this production for yourselves… It is a joyful, rule-breaking, unapologetically queer delight that honors Wilde’s spirit while serving up something fun, frothy, and deliciously modern.”