★★★★☆
Just up the Strand from the Vaudeville Theatre, in the walkway round the back of St Martin-in-the-Fields, lies a bronze and granite statue of Oscar Wilde by Maggi Hambling. He’s reclining, as was his wont, smoking a fag, looking up at the sky. “We are all in the gutter,” goes the inscription, “but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Well, I thought, sitting in the theatre, yes we are. The quote is from this play, written in 1891 when Wilde was in the Lake District, thus the waterside names. The starriest of those on stage is Jennifer Saunders, although Kevin Bishop and Samantha Spiro twinkle pretty brightly too. The real star is the play and it has been improved by the director Kathy Burke’s skilful editing.
It is part of Dominic Dromgoole’s year-long celebration of Wilde and, for those who say that the world does not need another Wilde revival (ever), I would say: don’t be such a killjoy. The plot, though slight, revolves around a favourite Wilde theme: the balance of power between men and women, right and wrong, morality and hypocrisy, scandal and sex. This production, if not #metoo, feels very up-to-date.
Grace Molony plays Lady W. This is her West End debut and she is terrific in a part where she has to hold her own against Saunders’s stonkingly good Duchess of Berwick. I saw Molony on stage last year in Chichester and there is no doubt that she is a star of the future (no gutter for her).
The production has an air of elegance that it wears lightly. The set, by Paul Wills, is of the period, but sparsely furnished. The backdrops, especially the belle époque glass fan wall, are impressive. The music adds to the general air of gaiety and Burke has succeeded in making the cast look as if they are having a blast.
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Bishop is a dashingly funny Lord Darlington and Spiro, while not quite a natural as the femme fatale Mrs Erlynne, is still good. But it is Saunders who is truly memorable in a performance that seems based on Maggie Smith at her haughtiest in Downton Abbey, with bits of Edina from Absolutely Fabulous thrown in.
The Duchess isn’t in the second half of the play and so, instead, Saunders and other cast members entertain during a set change with a variety show number. The song, written by Burke, is hilarious. “Keep your hands off my fan, sir,” she warbles, wiggling her bustle like mad. “It doesn’t belong to you!” Who, frankly, would dare?
Box office: 0330 3334814, to April 7