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THEATRE REVIEW: Something is rotten in the state of the high classes




Crystal Clarke (Miss Hester Worsley), Anne Reid (Lady Hunstanton), Eve Best (Mrs Arbuthnot), Eleanor Bron (Lady Caroline Pontefract) and Phoebe Fildes (Lady Stutfield) in A Woman of No Importance, by Oscar Wilde, at the Vaudeville Theatre, London. Photo by Marc Brennar.
Crystal Clarke (Miss Hester Worsley), Anne Reid (Lady Hunstanton), Eve Best (Mrs Arbuthnot), Eleanor Bron (Lady Caroline Pontefract) and Phoebe Fildes (Lady Stutfield) in A Woman of No Importance, by Oscar Wilde, at the Vaudeville Theatre, London. Photo by Marc Brennar.

Long before teacher and "clean up TV" activist Mary Whitehouse said: "I've never had any hang-ups about sex...There are more hang-ups now than ever there were when I was growing up", Oscar Wilde wrote a play to prove that very point.

A Woman of No Importance, the second of four live screenings in the Oscar Wilde Season Live at Spalding's South Holland Centre on Tuesday night (read a review of the first screening, An Ideal Husband, here), was summed up in just four words by the Irish playwright's grandson, Merlin Holland.

A play about "rebellion, integrity, individualism and sexuality", A Woman of No Importance starts out as a comedy about high society set in the Hunstanton estate.

Emma Fielding (Mrs Allonby), Eleanor Bron (Lady Caroline Pontefract) and Phoebe Fildes (Lady Stutfield) in A Woman of No Importance, by Oscar Wilde, at the Vaudeville Theatre, London. Photo by Marc Brennar.
Emma Fielding (Mrs Allonby), Eleanor Bron (Lady Caroline Pontefract) and Phoebe Fildes (Lady Stutfield) in A Woman of No Importance, by Oscar Wilde, at the Vaudeville Theatre, London. Photo by Marc Brennar.

Lord Illingworth (Dominic Rowan, Law and Order UK) is a playboy for whom thoughts of loyalty and faithfulness have no meaning.

But his comfy gathering of lords and ladies is upset by the presence of American orphan Hester Worsley (Crystal Clarke, Star Wars Episodes VII and VIII) who plays a part in uncovering Illingworth's dark secret.

Crystal Clarke (Miss Hester Worsley), Anne Reid (Lady Hunstanton), Emma Fielding (Mrs Allonby) and Eleanor Bron (Lady Caroline Pontefract) in A Woman of No Importance, by Oscar Wilde, at the Vaudeville Theatre, London. Photo by Marc Brennar.
Crystal Clarke (Miss Hester Worsley), Anne Reid (Lady Hunstanton), Emma Fielding (Mrs Allonby) and Eleanor Bron (Lady Caroline Pontefract) in A Woman of No Importance, by Oscar Wilde, at the Vaudeville Theatre, London. Photo by Marc Brennar.

Enter Mrs Arbuthnot (Eve Best, The King's Speech) whose son Gerald (Harry Lister Smith) has been offered a job as Illingworth's private secretary.

The comedic mood of the play, best illustrated by the "slow on the uptake" Reverend Daubeny (William Gaunt, No Place Like Home), is suddenly shocked into darkness as Mrs Arbuthnot, the Woman of No Importance Wilde speaks of, confronts Lord Illingworth over his betrayal in failing to marry her whilst pregnant.

In the end, Gerald turns down the job offer in contempt for his father, choosing instead to start a new life with Hester and his mother.

By the end of the play, the Woman of No Importance has turned the tables sufficiently to tell her son that Lord Illingworth is a "man of no importance".

Review by Winston Brown



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