THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
By Oscar Wilde
National Theatre – Lyttleton, South Bank, London SE1, until January 25, 2025
Director Max Webster has given the National Theatre a glittery pink Christmas bauble here. Already nearly sold out, it’s a vehicle for megastar-to-be Ncuti Gatwa of Dr Who and Sex Education fame and he runs with it.
There’s nothing really radical about it though, it’s just perfectly gussied up. Webster sensibly leaves the text unaltered (well, why would you?) and instead adorns it with witty preludes to each act which are exuberantly camp but without falling into pantomime territory.
We first meet Algernon (Gatwa) at the piano, the morning after a great night before, and still in a pink taffeta ballgown. This Mayfair house could be Alexander McQueen’s. It fits.
In comes his best mate Jack (Hugh Skinner), all dapper and floppy haired, and the two plot and giggle like a pair of schoolboys. Skinner’s timing is exquisite as is his flare for physical comedy, be it cowering beneath a chair after his encounter with Lady Bracknell or gamboling about like a spring lamb. Gatwa, with a smile that lights up a room, has movie star charisma and here he’s dressed to perfection by Rae Smith in a perfectly ostentatious yet elegant reimagining of Victorian formal wear. He slithers off and on the chaise-longue like a self-satisfied Persian cat.
They both of course have devised fictional alternative personas: one for the country, one for town which enables them to have their fun. Wilde’s triumph with this play was to slowly poach the hypocrisies of high society such that they didn’t notice it and all the while loving his jokes.
The two boys meet their match here with the girls. Eliza Scanlen is a standout as Cecily Cardew, Jack’s precocious 18 year old ward, buried in the country, perfectly capturing her nascent tone of confident delusion while Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ deftly captures Gwendolen’s rebel spirit under the thumb of her fearsome mother.
In many productions Wilde’s barrage of epigrams can feel glib and overdone but here Webster’s direction is so fleet footed, with great use of physical comedy, that he prevents it from sinking under the witticisms.
There isn’t a weak link in the cast with Richard Cant perfectly canonical as Reverend Chasuble and Amanda Lawrence bringing an almost youthful air to this very academic Miss Prism. They flutter round each other like butterflies with hilarious effect. Then there’s the glorious Julian Bleach (of Shockheaded Peter fame) as Lane, the butler, whose unique vocals are enhanced by the use of the gong with which he terrorises various guests.
But what about “The Haaaandbag?” I hear you say? Well, Sharon D Clarke spits in out in shock. After a long career it is great to see this real dame of the London theater take on this role and make it her own. She’s decided to play her with a Jamaican accent, which works a treat, and it reminds one of those stern ladies in their huge hats you see in London on a Sunday morning making their way to church. It also gives Rae Smith free rein to reinterpret her costumes with an explosion of Caribbean patterns and colors.
Smith’s sets, framed in a wonderful proscenium arch, are surprisingly lavish and it’s great to see projections banished for once. Curtain scenes are used to witty effect: “We’ve covered the scene change, now just go!” says Jack.
At one stage Algy exclaims “It’s much better to talk nonsense than to listen to it” and there’s rarely been a production of this play whose style so expertly matches this dictum.
