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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

By Oscar Wilde

★★★★ ‘An inventive new take on an old favourite’ Spy in the Stalls

‘The perfect summer production’ Daily Info, Oxford

★★★★ ‘Laugh-a-minute funny’ Broadway World

‘Fizzes with comic invention and humour’ British Theatre Guide

★★★★ 'Enjoyable and thought-provoking' Plays to See

Thu 23 May 2019 - Sat 29 Jun 2019


‘You are the most earnest looking person I ever saw in my life’
 

Jack Worthing lives a double life between his idyllic manor in the country and his stylish town house in the capital. To those who know Jack in the countryside, he is the epitome of respectfulness, devoted to providing a sound upbringing for his ward Cecily and often rushing into London to look after his wayward brother Ernest. To those who Jack entertains in the city, he is known as Ernest: an indulgent bachelor who loves nothing more than doing nothing, often accompanied by his mischievous friend Algernon. It is a secret to nearly everyone that Ernest doesn’t actually exist!


Discovered as a baby in a handbag in the lost property cloakroom at Victoria Station, Jack’s identity has always been an enigma. When a marriage proposal sets a sequence of ridiculous events in motion, Jack’s past threatens to catch up with him. Oscar Wilde’s trademark wit and masterful storytelling are at the heart of this hilarious comedy of manners about misbehaving in a manor.

 

Running Times 
Act I: 40 mins
Interval: 20 mins
Act II: 1 hour 10 mins 

Directed by Kate Budgen
Designed by Amy Jane Cook
Lighting designed by Sally Ferguson
Sound designed by Jon McLeod

Charlotte Beaumont

Cecily

Theatre includes: Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Lovely Bones (Royal & Derngate), Pebbles (Katz Space), No One Will Tell Me How To Start A Revolution (Hampstead Theatre), Jumpy (Theatre Clwyd), 3 Winters (Lyttleton Theatre, National), Love Your Soldiers (Sheffield Crucible), Playhouse Creatures (Chichester Festival Theatre), Blue Heaven (Finborough Theatre), The Flooded Grave (The Bush Theatre), 2,000 Feet Away (The Bush Theatre).

TV includes: Death in Paradise (BBC 1), Broadchurch - Series 1 to 3 (Kudos for ITV), Obsession (October Films), Midsummer Murders (Bentley for ITV), BBC iPlayer Short (BBC), Waterloo Road (Shed Productions for BBC) Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This (Left Bank Pictures for ITV), Coming Up: Sink or Swim (Touchpaper for Channel 4), Skins (Company Pics for E4), Doctors, Eastenders, Holby City (BBC).

Film includes: Skip Girl, The Windmill, Butterfly Kisses, Balcony (Short) 66 Berlinale Crystal Bear Winner, Jupiter Ascending, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, 6 Bullets.

Peter Bray

Algernon

Theatre includes: The Boy From Centreville (The Pleasance Edinburgh Festival), Shooting Rats (Oval House Theatre), Moshing Lying Down (UK Tour), After Violence (Raynes Park Festival), Stories Project 2 (Southwark Playhouse), Blowing (FanSHEN Theatre Company), A Midsummer Night's Dream (The Lord Chamberlain's Men), Lion Boy (workshop for Complicite), The Heart Of Robin Hood (RSC), A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet (Shakespeare's Glove & UK, European and American Tour), De Gabay (National Theatre of Wales), Britten: The Canticles (Linbury Studio/Theatre Royal Brighton), The Green Cockatoo workshop (National Theatre), Emil & The Detectives (National Theatre), The Roaring Girl, Arden Of Faversham and The White Devil (RSC), The Duchess Of Malfi (Nottingham Playhouse), Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe), The Iliad (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh), Much Ado About Nothing (Mercury Theatre), Sleeping Beauty (Watermill Theatre), Measure For Measure, Hamlet (USA Tour) In Basildon (Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch).

Jim Creighton

Dr Chasuble

Theatre includes: The Best Man (UK Tour & West End); Macbeth (Theatre Severn); Enemy of the People, Cyrano de Bergerac, Three Sisters (Chichester Festival Theatre); War Of The Roses (Rose Theatre, Kingston); Journey's End (Watermill Theatre); The Silver Tassie, Fram, Market Boy, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, The Merchant of Venice, Money, Summerfolk, Troilus and Cressida, Peter Pan, An Enemy of the People, Skylight (Royal National Theatre); Brand, The Merchant of Venice (RSC); Richard III (Nottingham Playhouse); Overruled (Wilmington Theatre Co.); Desire Under Elms (Lyric Hammersmith); The Tempest, Flarepath (Theatre Royal Haymarket); 1936 (Arcola); Loot (Tricycle); On the Middle Day, The Entertainer (Old Vic).

Television includes: The Crown, Bulletproof!, The Child In Time, Grantchester, Apple Tree Yard, WPC 56, Doctors, The Hour, King Lear, Ashes to Ashes, Emergency Rescue, The Estate, The Merchant of Venice, The Perfect Crime.

Claudia Jolly

Gwendolyn

Theatre includes: Girl From The North Country (Old Vic/West End); LSO: Roald Dahl Centenary Concert (Barbican); Men (Arcola Theatre/Edinburgh Fringe); As You Like It (Edinburgh Fringe); The Country, Coram Boy (Pleasance Theatre). Whilst at Guildhall: On The Twentieth Century, Go, Make You Ready, Lulu, Mephisto, Macbeth, Into The Woods, Separate Tables, For Services Rendered, The Cherry Orchard, Medieval Mystery Plays.

Film: On Chesil Beach (BBC Films/Lionsgate). Television: Endeavour Series 6 (ITV), NW (Mammoth Screen/BBC). Radio: The Story of a New Name (BBC Radio 4).

Wendy Nottingham

Miss Prism

Wendy is best known for her collaborations with Mike Leigh, including the BAFTA award winning Vera Drake and Grief at The National. More recently she reprised her recurring role of Mrs Crabbe in the final series of ITV’s Mr Selfridge and played new series regular Mary in Peaky Blinders. She also filmed A Children Act, alongside Emma Thompson, and performed in Diminished at the Hampstead Theatre.

Morgan Philpott

Lane / Merriman

For The Watermill Theatre: The Secret Adversary, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Arabian Nights, Treasure Island, Gulliver's Travels, The Snow Queen.

Theatre includes: The 101 Dalmatians (Birmingham Rep) Macbeth; The Tempest (Stafford Castle); Partners In Crime (Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch); Larisa And The Merchants (Arcola Theatre); King Lear, As You Like It, Henry V (Creation Theatre); Macbeth, Merry Wives Of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Comedy Of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V (Guildford Shakespeare Company); The Sound of Music (Kilworth House); Dick Turpin’s Last Ride (Bury St. Edmunds Theatre Royal); Larkrise To Candleford (New Perspectives); Don Quixote (Croydon Warehouse); Horrible Histories, Twelfth Night, George’s Marvellous Medicine (Birmingham Stage Company); James And The Giant Peach (Northampton Theatre Royal); Pinocchio (Polka Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Hamlet (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory).

Film and Television includes: Coronation Street (ITV), Doctors (BBC), Then Voyager (Filmro Productions), The Story Of George Muller (CTA), Beau Brummel (BBC).

Benedict Salter

Jack

Theatre includes: Vespertilio (VAULT Festival), Lady Windermere’s Fan (West End), The Last Days of Anne Boleyn (Tower of London), A Little Night Music (Watermill Theatre), An Inspector Calls (West End), Shakespeare in Music (RSC/Southbank Sinfonia).
Roles while at LAMDA include: Hjalmar Ekdal in The Wild Duck; David in Mydidae and Duke Solinus & Doctor Pinch in The Comedy of Errors. Benedict was also a BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award finalist in 2016.

Connie Walker

Lady Bracknell

Theatre includes: In Basildon (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch), My Mother Said I Never Should (London Classic Theatre), Trestle (Southwark Playhouse), The March on Russia (Orange Tree Theatre), Death of a Salesman (Northampton Royal), A Month of Sundays (Queen's Theatre Hornchurch), Folk (Birmingham Rep/Hull Truck), Seeing The Lights (New Vic Theatre), To Kill A Mockingbird (Regent's Park/UK Tour/Barbican), An Inspector Calls (English Theatre of Frankfurt), As You Like It, Hay Fever (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Beauty Queen of Leenane (London Classic), Separate Tables (Chichester) Spring Awakening (Novello Theatre), Deathtrap (English Theatre, Frankfurt), Plunder (Watermill & Greenwich Theatre), Kes, Top Girls (New Vic, Stoke), Inside Out (Tour/Arcola), Happy Birthday Brecht (National Theatre), Mother Courage, The Miser (The Wolsey, Ipswich), Much Ado About Nothing (Manchester Royal Exchange), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Mercury Theatre, Colchester)

Film includes: The Darkest Light, What Do You See?

Television includes: Holby City, Coronation Street, Vera, Scott & Bailey, Hollyoaks, Holby City, Silent Witness, Casualty, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, New Tricks, Blackpool, Doctors, M.I.T., The Vice, Dream Team, The Bill.

Radio includes: The Chausseur and the Nun, Stage Fright, Anthony and Cleopatra (all for BBC Radio).