Jonathan Church has produced this wonderful Oscar Wilde play in Salisbury and at Chichester and now directs it as part of the Oscar Wilde season at the Vaudeville. It is easy to see why he returns to this incredibly witty melodrama about truth, morality, love and politics as although it was written in 1895, it still remains fresh, relevant and highly entertaining. In the first two acts Wilde's witty one liners rattle across the footlights in a machine gun rapid fire so that it is sometimes hard to catch and digest them all. Church brings his cast downstage to fire these lines out with precision and delight and we easily set aside his age and colour blind casting. In the third act, it is a hilarious farce which is elegantly resolved in Act 4.
The casting of Edward Fox as the Earl of Caversham together with his actual son, Freddie Fox as his son Viscount Goring provides an extra delightful piquancy to many of the lines as he describes him as "a good for nothing son " and that he never "knows when you are serious or not" and Goring later retorts "Fathers should be seen and not heard ". Freddie Fox is magnificent as the pleasure seeking narcissist who turns out to be a smarter intermediary amongst the aristocratic society in which he mixes. Dressed to look like Oscar Wilde himself Goring is challenged by his father if he is married yet and quips " ask me again half an hour" and then secures the hand of Faith Omole's Miss Mabel Chiltern, although we are never sure whether this is for convenience or love and he certainly does not appear to be an ideal husband. Indeed as he himself says “I usually say what I really think. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood".
