The Arts Centre, Hounslow, is part-way through its summer season in the lovely Walled Garden setting at Boston Manor Park. This year’s plays include The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.
I didn’t think I’d hear an early Hall & Oates song sung on stage in a Victorian drama, but here we are, with “Rich Girl” opening act two. It’s a nice touch.
A brief precis of the action in the unlikely event this play is new to you. Algy Moncrief is a rich boy who does little beside ‘Bunburying’ around the English counties. His friend Jack Worthing has a completely different life outside London, with an ‘excessively pretty’ ward.
Algy’s cousin Gwendolen is in love with Jack, but her mother Lady Bracknell is unimpressed with his origins. The idea of a fictional brother, Ernest, puts quite a spanner in the works.
This production is directed by Jonathan Ashby-Rock, who also plays the roles of Lane (Algy’s butler), Merriman (Jack’s estate man), and Dr Chasuble (country vicar). He makes the most of all of them.
It’s a sparkling production that allows the physical comedy to shine. Phoebe Taylor-Jones is a face-pulling Bracknell whose expression could stop clocks, while Danni Ashby’s Gwendolen is a spirited sensation.
In the country setting of act two, Sophie Spencer’s Prism has a good line in bashfulness and righteous fluttering, and Lottie Bond-Taylor is a deeply amusing Cecily, especially delightful in her scenes with Ashby.
The men hardly get a look in, but a jovial comic turn from Ewan Reilly as Algy lightens matters, leaving Matthew McGoldrick’s Jack to bluster and seethe on the sidelines.
Ashby-Rock’s approach with the material is to allow the text to hit while ensuring it feels somewhat modern (hence the songs that top and tail each act).
In the Walled Garden, a well-detailed set doubles as both Algy’s town house and Jack’s country seat. Roses grow around the garden wall, cucumber sandwiches and muffins are guzzled.
If you know the play well, you may recognise a tweak or two, but all the lines and inflections we know and love are here, from the handbag, to the metaphors, and the severe chill.
It’s an amusing couple of hours in the company of a play written 130 years ago, yet still able to raise knowing smiles now at ‘the vital importance of being Ernest’.
A hugely endearing production in a great setting and you don’t even need to bring your own chair!
4 stars.
You can see The Importance of Bring Earnest until 24 Aug with tickets here.