THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

UK, 2018, q25 minutes, Colour.
Jacob Lloyd- Fortune, Fehinti Belogun, Sophie Thompson, Pippi Nixon, Fiona Button, Stella Gonet, Jeremy Swift.
Directed by Michael Fentiman.

There have been many film versions of Oscar Wilde celebrated play, the classic, almost archetypal, being that of 1952, directed by Anthony Asquith, and elegant performances from Michael Redgrave and Michael Denison as Ernest and Algernon, an unforgettable Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell, a dithering Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism, Miles Malleson as an also dithering Canon Chasuble, and the restraint and charm of Joan Greenwood and Dorothy Tutin as Gwendoline and Cecily.

Wilde would have been very pleased with the elegant diction of his words, as well as the charming restraint of the performances.

There was an all-star version in 2002, Colin Firth and Rupert Everett, Frances O’ Connor and Reese Witherspoon, and Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell (given a background of her being a chorus girl in vaudeville!!). Much of the delightful dialogue was omitted.

David Suchet then took the role of Lady Bracknell on stage and there was a film version of the play.

A 2018 audience unfamiliar with the 1952 version is heard laughing heartily in the background of this version of a stage performance at London’s Vaudeville Theatre. For those whose memories are in the past, this will not be as pleasant an experience.

Sophie Thompson is a variation on Lady Bracknell and brings some insight into her character. The two actresses as Gwendoline and Cecily are quite aggressive in character and in performance (too aggressive for Wilde’s text). Stella Gonet is very straight-up-and-down as Miss Prism, giving no indication that she would ever have been dithering and losing the handbag.

The two leads as Ernest and Algernon do their best – and, there is the surprise of the black actor, Fehinti Belogun in the role of Algernon, British theatre casting black actors in classic roles on stage and in cinema.